


This Must Be the Place

by hollycomb



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Dissociation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multiple Personalities, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 04:15:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2637710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollycomb/pseuds/hollycomb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bucky reemerges, he is adamant that James Buchanan Barnes is dead and that the shell of the Winter Soldier will soon expire according to Hydra's design. Steve is not willing to accept this, or the fact that Bucky seems to want it to be true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Must Be the Place

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my extremely helpful beta readers, Viivi and Amanda Jean. This is my first Marvel fic, and I really needed guidance with quite a few things. You guys were incredibly patient and thorough with your notes, and I appreciate it so much. 
> 
> Thank you as well for [digitalwave](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Digitalwave/pseuds/Digitalwave) for doing excellent artwork for the story! The art looks great and really evokes the tone of the story well, so please check it out [here on AO3](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2637320) or [over on LJ](http://digitalwave.livejournal.com/629049.html).
> 
>  **Warning** : Implied past non-con is mentioned in this story.

  
  
Steve wakes up feeling like the gravity in his bedroom is switched off, the weight of his mattress unbalanced. He springs up for a fight when he sees the silhouette of a person at the end of his bed, lying on his side and facing away from him, long hair covering his face.  
  
Bucky doesn't flinch when Steve puts on the light. He's filthy, smells horrible, and for an icy half-second Steve thinks someone from Hydra has killed Bucky and deposited the remains here to taunt him. Then he sees Bucky's side rise and fall: he's breathing, asleep, his knees pulled up toward his chest like a kid, clothes tattered and dirty. He's wearing gloves, his metal hand concealed. Steve stands near the bed hoping this isn't only a dream. He's had no real leads for a month, and now here he is: the Winter Soldier, dozing at the foot of Steve's bed like a lost dog who returned home in the night. Steve picks up his shield, slowly.  
  
"Buck?" he says, speaking softly. It hurts to call him that and brace for violent retaliation. Bucky remains motionless. Steve can hear him breathing in little pants like a wounded animal, but he doesn't appear injured, just knocked out. Did someone deposit him here? How the hell did he get in so soundlessly? Steve has never been a deep sleeper. He eyes his phone on the bedside table, wanting to call Sam, Natasha, Fury, but he quickly decides it's best if they don't know about this until he figures out why Bucky is here, what he remembers, and if he pulled Steve out of the river. Though really, he already knows the answer to that last question.  
  
Steve paces and watches Bucky sleep. Bucky seems agitated even at rest like this, and every time he twitches Steve goes tense, still holding his shield. Hours pass and the sky lightens, the sun rising behind rain clouds. It's been drizzling for a while, foggy in a dreamlike way. When the rain picks up and splatters the windows, Bucky flinches, and the distant rumble of thunder finally wakes him. He opens his eyes, his hair still fanned across his face. Steve lowers the shield to his side when Bucky's wild eyes jerk up to meet his.  
  
"Are you hurt?" Steve asks. Bucky is breathing harder now, unblinking, his gloved fingers curling into fists.  
  
"What have you done to me?" he asks. His voice is gravelly with disuse, hoarse.  
  
"Buck, I haven't. Do you remember me?"  
  
Bucky springs up from the bed in answer. Steve jumps back, maintaining a fighting stance. They lock eyes and freeze like that, both of them breathing hard. Thunder rumbles again, closer this time, and it rattles the apartment's old window frames.  
  
"Is this a dream?" Bucky asks. It's an disconcertingly innocent question from someone with that look on his face. Bucky's eyes are angry, his gaze darting about the room like a cornered animal's.  
  
"Not a dream." Steve lowers the shield again, lifting his other hand in a peace offering. "Bucky, you. You saved my life. I know you did. I felt you there. I fuh--" He has to stop talking, his voice choking away. He's not sure he wants to say that out loud, anyway:  _I feel you everywhere, find you nowhere_.  
  
Bucky bolts for the bedroom door, and when Steve moves to stop him he gets thrown aside, taken off guard by how strong Bucky still is. He looks weary and thinner, but he can run like hell, same as the night he shot Fury. Steve chases him out into the hallway and manages to grab hold of the hood on his sweatshirt, only to get a fist in his face and a kick to the gut. Steve is only a few weeks out of the hospital, but he heals quickly. It's his reeling mind that can't keep up with this fight. He's able to chase Bucky out onto the street, but the rain is pouring and Bucky is good at disappearing.  
  
Steve is left standing in the in an empty alleyway, soaked by the rain. He looks down at himself and curses when he remembers that he's barefoot in boxer shorts and a T-shirt that's quickly becoming translucent. Still, he lingers a while, waiting for Bucky to come back.  
  
"You don't have to answer for any of it!" Steve shouts, feeling insane, because he's pretty sure Bucky is out of earshot now. "Just--"  
  
The rest, he doesn't want to say out loud, let alone shout. His lungs feel too weak to give air to the words:  _Just come back. Sleep on the end of my bed. Throw me across the room. Whatever you want. Just come back_.  
  
On the walk home he actually catches himself feeling cheerful, and he's able to smile genuinely at the neighbors in his building's lobby when they stare, his wet clothes stuck to him in a very immodest way. Steve doesn't care: Bucky came to him. He might not know that he wants Steve's help, but some part of him must know that he needs it.  
  
*  
  
"So what's up?" Sam asks him, again, during their working lunch the next day. They're at Sam's place, the contents of the Winter Soldier's file spread across the dining room table. Steve keeps getting distracted, staring at Bucky's pictures. He's moved them side by side: an old one of him in uniform, barely suppressing a proud smile, and a more recent one: dead-eyed, expressionless, transformed into the Winter Soldier.  
  
"Nothing," Steve says. He hates keeping things from Sam, but it's necessary for now. "I feel like maybe I need a day off from -- this. Feeling kind of PTSD-ish."  
  
"Man." Sam looks down at the maps he'd been analyzing, toying with one curling corner. "You have really got to accept that you can't lie convincingly." He looks up at Steve and sighs. "He found you, didn't he?"  
  
"Sorry." Steve nods. "Last night, he just showed up. Then he was gone again. I feel like I dreamed it." He looks down at the pictures again, remembering Bucky's question: Is this a dream? In hindsight, Steve doesn't feel qualified to answer.  
  
"Damn, dude." Sam looks genuinely hurt, and Steve feels awful. "You really weren't going to tell me?"  
  
"No, I was. Of course I was. I just wanted to figure out what to do next before I started spreading the news. We barely exchanged ten words. He seemed pretty out of his mind. Smelled bad, too," Steve says, letting his eyes go unfocused, the two pictures of Bucky blurring together on the table.  
  
"Well, he's probably living in the sewers. Only place we hadn't looked."  
  
"I want to stop chasing him down. I think he might come to me again if I give him a little space."  
  
"Uh-huh. Did it seem like he might use that little bit of space to go on another killing spree?"  
  
"No, he's. I told you, he saved me. He's remembering."  
  
"If you say so." Sam starts gathering up the papers, neatening them before putting them back in the file. "You feel like sharing those words you guys exchanged?"  
  
"Sam--" Steve stops himself from apologizing again. Sam doesn't understand how delicately Steve has to proceed here. "He asked me what I did to him," Steve says when Sam finally looks up from straightening the papers. Sam raises his eyebrows.  
  
"Interesting. That mean anything to you?"  
  
"Not really. Unless he's talking about how I jogged his memory. How he's started to come back to himself, because of -- everything."  
  
"Poor guy's gonna have to face all that sometime. Look, I'm glad he came to you. That's a good sign. Keep me in the loop, though, all right?"  
  
"I will." Steve leans over and squeezes Sam's shoulder. "Since I lost SHIELD, since Natasha and Fury split -- I feel like I'm only on my feet because of you, most days. I'm just sleepwalking today. Stood there staring at him last night for -- five hours, maybe?"  
  
"Staring at him -- wait. He was staring back?"  
  
"No, he was asleep." Steve leaves off the part about Bucky sleeping at the foot of his bed, his throat pinching up at the thought of Bucky at ten, fifteen, eighteen. An arm's reach away when they shared sleeping quarters, sometimes closer. He was always bigger than Steve, always warm.  
  
"Asleep," Sam says, slowly. "Huh. Something about that's not right."  
  
"I agree. Look, you keep grilling the Hydra agents in custody. You're better at needling them than me anyhow. One of them is bound to crack and give you something."  
  
"Such optimism." Sam grins and slaps Steve's shoulder. "Just watch yourself if he shows up again, okay? I'd be willing to bet Hydra's got multiple layers of crazy and a few secret switches tucked away in your friend's brain."  
  
"Maybe. But I've got something stronger. It got through to him even when they had him in their grip. Even when they had him firing at me."  
  
"And what's that?"  
  
"I know him. He knows me. We--" Steve stops himself before he can start rambling, already embarrassed that he's said this much. "We're connected. I'm the antidote, I'm sure of it."  
  
"I see." Sam studies him for a moment as if judging whether to say more. "Just don't let the poison dissolve you."  
  
"He's not poison," Steve says, sharply, though Sam doesn't know Bucky as anything but the relentless monster who ripped one of his wings off and flung him from the side of a skyscraper, among other unsavory things.  
  
Steve putters around the city, feeling untethered. He wishes Natasha would make contact. He misses her sturdy presence at his side, and her ability to lighten his steps with a wry remark. She would have a better read on the Bucky situation than well-intentioned Sam, who just wants to protect his friend. Steve had gotten used to the idea of being the guy who did the protecting, never the other way around, and he wants so badly to do that for Bucky, who's the only thing Steve has needed protecting from in a long time.  
  
At dusk he buys a calzone from his favorite pizzeria and then a half liter of milk from the corner store near his building. He heads up to his place and pauses before he puts the key in the lock. There's a sound from within, subtle and consistent. He tries the knob; it's open. Possibly he just forgot to lock it. He puts his dinner on the kitchen counter and listens. His shower is running.  
  
He starts to call out, then decides he'd better not. If it's Bucky in there, saying something might give him a head start on his next dash for the exit. Steve pushes open the cracked bathroom door slowly, keeping quiet, and surveys the dirty clothing that's been strewn across the bathroom floor. His shower curtain is opaque, but he feels like he can see through it.  
  
"Don't flip out," he says when he hears the squeak of a foot sliding against the tub. "It's me."  
  
Bucky says nothing. Steve figures, screw it -- some awkward nudity is the least of their problems. He goes to the curtain and peeks inside, making sure that it is indeed Bucky using his shower. Bucky is leaning against the tiles with the water beating on his back, his face pressed to his human arm. The metal arm hangs at his side. Steve wonders if it ever rusts, trying to remember what he read in the Winter Soldier's file, what those quacks used to make it. Probably something rust-resistant. Seems like they'd factor that in.  
  
"You okay?" Steve mutters. It's strange to see the line where metal meets skin, swooping down from Bucky's shoulder and running diagonal under the shoulder joint. "Bucky?" Steve says.  
  
"Bucky's dead." His face is still hidden against his arm, voice ragged. "Haven't you seen the film?"  
  
"The -- what?"  
  
"The museum. There was a movie and everything. That guy died."  
  
"No, Bucky--"  
  
"Stop calling me that! I should know." He looks at Steve from over his shoulder, eyes narrowed and furious. "He died inside me. So don't tell me I'm wrong. You weren't there. You didn't feel him take his last breath and shrivel up, blow away."  
  
Steve is shattered by that, but he won't let it sink in because it can't be true. The man who saved him from drowning is the Bucky who lived.  
  
"What have you remembered?" Steve asks, though he supposes this really isn't the place for this conversation. His eyes haven't wandered below Bucky's waist, but he's flushing, feeling exposed himself. Bucky smiles strangely.  
  
"You were his buddy," Bucky says. "His little bitch. Then they turned you into whatever I am, only they told you to bust skulls for the good guys. Only the good guys turned out to not be so good. What are you looking at, soldier? You want a piece of this ass? Take it, I don't care. Hasn't been mine to give for a while."  
  
Steve steps back, letting the shower curtain fall into place. Bucky laughs darkly, the cruel rumble of it echoing off the tile walls. But no, that's not Bucky. That's the Winter Soldier. They're both in there, and one of them doesn't have his voice back yet.  
  
Steve's face is burning; Bucky was always at least a little drunk, back then. It was mostly innocent: kissing lessons, warm fumbling, secret closeness that they never had a word for. Steve would straddle Bucky's lap, legs around his waist, feeling small and embarrassed but also special, safe. They'd mostly given it up by the time they hit high school. Of all the things to remember - that? Steve braces himself against the wall, remembering how Bucky's hands used to soothe over his back when his breathing got too hard, how he'd whisper  _shhhh_  and ask him if he needed to slow down, if he was having an asthma attack. Steve always hated saying yes, that they had to stop, even when he couldn't breathe.  
  
"I got something for dinner, if you want split it with me," Steve says when he can talk again. "It's a calzone. Pepperoni."  
  
"Jesus," Bucky mutters. Steve heads for the door, feeling dizzy. "You got beer?" Bucky calls before he can get far.  
  
"No. I don't really drink."  
  
There's no further comment from the shower, and Steve shuts the door behind him. He's shaken, his appetite gone. Bucky has all of the weapons that can do actual damage, and Steve never thought he'd use them against him. He stands at the open fridge, breathing heavily and double-checking that he doesn't actually have a beer or two here, leftovers from some night when Sam ate over. There's nothing, and he's disappointed. Bucky always liked beer. He doubts the Winter Soldier was ever allowed to have any, so that was Bucky asking, which is a good sign but also disconcerting, the real parts of him brushing up close against the derisive laughter of the Soldier.  
  
Steve forces himself to eat his calzone, standing at the counter and drinking directly from the milk jug. His stomach hurts when he's done, and the shower is still running. He flips through his mail, paces around the living room, and finally goes to the bathroom door when half an hour has passed.  
  
"You okay in there?" he calls. There's no answer. Steve opens the door and hurries to the shower, afraid Bucky might have passed out. "Buck -- hello?" He's got to stop using that name, but how can he? He pulls back the shower curtain and startles when he finds the tub empty. Bucky's dirty clothes are still scattered across the floor, along with a damp towel. Steve isn't sure he's prepared to deal with Bucky wandering his apartment naked right now.  
  
"Where'd you go?" Steve asks, moving from room to room. In his bedroom he finds a window open, curtains billowing. His favorite jacket is gone. He takes inventory and finds that Bucky also took a pair of jeans, a belt, socks, a T-shirt, and forty dollars from Steve's wallet. No underwear, apparently.  
  
In bed that night, Steve is tense and unable to sleep, wondering when Bucky will return. He threw away Bucky's dirty laundry, which was too tattered to salvage. He does like the idea that, if Bucky has to be out there, roaming around with the Winter Soldier in the pilot seat, at least he's got Steve's clean clothes for armor.  
  
*  
  
In the morning, Steve doesn't know what to do with himself. The hunt for the Winter Soldier is essentially over, though certainly not resolved, and he's willing to wait, at least for a while, for Bucky to come to him. He goes to the VA, but Sam is out on house calls, so he stops by the crash site to see if he can help with the cleanup. The Army guards posted to the site look at each other nervously and then up at Steve. The taller one says he'll have to ask his LT, and Steve says he'll come back later, though he knows he probably won't. He feels awkward, unlinked from any official chain of command and out in the public eye. The smaller soldier asks Steve to take a picture with him, and he does, smiling queasily at the kid's cell phone camera.  
  
On his way back home gets a text message from Sam. It's just one character: a question mark.  
  
 _No new news_ , Steve sends. He feels bad for being so vague, wants to invite Sam to have dinner at his place and hash out all the potential ways deprogramming the Winter Soldier might work, but he can't do that yet. If Sam is at the apartment, Bucky won't show, and he'd be scared away if he's already there, skulking through Steve's rooms as if he hasn't been trained to get resources from more anonymous places. Steve hurries his footsteps on his way home, then breaks into a run. Maybe he shouldn't leave the apartment for a while, just in case.  
  
He feels almost rejected when he reaches the apartment and finds it empty. It's ridiculous, and embarrassing; he did a thorough search of the rooms and even looked under the bed, though the space between the floor and the mattress board is too narrow for anybody over the age of ten to squeeze into. When his phone buzzes he scrambles it out of his pocket so eagerly that he almost drops it. There's a new text message from a number he doesn't recognize:  
  
 _called Sharon yet?_  
  
He smirks down at the screen and wonders if it's okay to respond with 'Hi, Natasha.' Mentioning her name might be a bad idea. He's still never sure who might be monitoring his communications. So he sends back:  
  
 _Been busy_  
  
 _heard that one before_  
  
He wants to tell her everything, to call this number and gush like a gossip about Bucky's return. It's not safe to do that yet, so he just stares down at his phone and allows the miasma of missing her to cloud around him. Sam's the one he needs on a daily basis, with his takeout pizzas and familial concern, but Natasha knows what Steve going through more specifically, the stumbling feeling of having lost his direction. Though maybe that's not so, if she thinks a date with a pretty girl is what he needs. He puts the phone away without responding. There's really only one person who understands what he's going through, and he can't shake the feeling that Bucky didn't stray far since he filched Steve's stuff. He also can't shake the feeling that he's still underwater, waiting to be pulled to the surface.  
  
*  
  
Steve feels like an idiot for not having realized how many details of his life were handled by SHIELD and Fury. His cell phone service is cut off first, and then his bank card won't work. The apartment is paid for, but he no longer has income. Sam has insinuated that he might be able to get something for Steve at the VA, but he's not sure he's the guy for the job, not right now, with everything in him still splintered. He knows which temporary project he'd like to work on, that would put his skills to use for now, but Bucky hasn't returned. It's been a week since he used Steve's shower and disappeared with his clothes.  
  
 _you could do motivational speeches_  
  
This is Natasha's suggestion after Sam helps Steve out with the phone thing.  
  
 _I'm not feeling very motivational at the moment_  
  
 _reality tv?  
  
Very funny  
  
um, I was not joking?_  
  
He's contacted by a slew of private agencies who want him working for them, but he doesn't return any of the calls. He needs a break from agencies for a while, though the thought is terrifying. He's always had someone to answer to, and he keeps feeling like he's been orphaned all over again, adrift and unaffiliated. Except that he wasn't, back then, when he lost his parents. He had Bucky.  
  
"Maybe you should get a dog?" Sam says one night when he's putting his dish in the sink after another awkward dinner in front of the TV. Steve has given up on staying here alone and hoping Bucky will climb through the window. It's not worth the price of the isolation in the meantime.  
  
"Can't," Steve says. "Fury could call for me any day now." He ignores Sam's incredulous look; they both know he's not waiting around here for word from Fury. "Then you'd be the one with the dog."  
  
"I like dogs."  
  
"Well, yeah - so it wouldn't really be mine." Though it's a flimsy excuse to stay in one place, it's also true that Fury might need him, and Steve really doesn't want to bond with something just to have to abandon it. That's the last thing he needs right now. "I'm away too much. Usually."  
  
He looks around his quiet apartment, hankering for a mission. Bucky must be feeling this tenfold: just lost, debris in an ocean that's suddenly calmed. The calm is as frightening and disorienting as any storm has been so far.  
  
"You alright?" Sam says, waving his hand in front of Steve's face.  
  
"What -- yeah."  
  
"Was just saying, see you tomorrow."  
  
"Yep. Thanks for, um. Everything. I mean it, Sam."  
  
"I know you do, Cap."  
  
Steve feels like a child, the way he did when he first woke up in the future. It's all new, and nothing is where he left it. He checks his phone again, but there's no new message from Natasha. When he washes up he puts some music on, just to combat the creeping dread that fills the quiet, and he leaves the TV on when he goes to bed.  
  
*  
  
In the morning he wakes knowing something is wrong. The air in his apartment is different; the scent is off. He sits up in bed and waits, listening. It's gray outside, raining again. He's not alone here, and his heart rate is climbing as he slides silently out of bed. He's pretty sure that scent he noticed is blood, metallic and dank.  
  
At the same time, he doesn't feel threatened. He feels something far more terrifying than that, and it rears up to strike him like a pair of poisoned fangs when he arrives in the kitchen and sees exactly what he feared he might: Bucky, lying on the floor in a puddle of blood.  
  
"Bucky!"  
  
He didn't mean to use that name, but Bucky is unconscious anyway. He's bleeding from the back of the neck, where he has a shallow, jagged gash. He's newly filthy, his hair covering his face in greasy strands. There are bloody hand prints on the counter near the sink, and on one cabinet that's half-open. Steve kneels down and uses a dish towel to put pressure on the wound, rolling Bucky onto his back. He revives with a hoarse cough and stares up at Steve with his cold stranger's eyes that are still somehow familiar.  
  
"Where am I?" he asks. Steve can feel him go tense, wanting to attack, but he's weak and trembling in Steve's hands.  
  
"My apartment," Steve says. He looks around the kitchen and into the living room. "Were you followed? Are you alone?"  
  
"How'd I get here?"  
  
"I don't know. I just woke up and-- What happened to your neck?"  
  
"I--" Bucky tries to sit up and winces, his metal arm heavy on Steve's thigh, fingers twitching. "I got the feeling they were trailing me, so I cut out the tracker."  
  
"The tracker?"  
  
"In my neck, the tracking device. I need to clean the wound." He meets Steve's eyes, then quickly looks away. "I'm not him anymore," he says, muttering this like it's almost an apology. "So stop looking at me like I am. I just need medicine, maybe a bandage."  
  
"Sure." Steve props Bucky up, holding him, his hand still snug over the dish towel that's pressed to the wound. "And it's way beyond your skills to break into a drug store. Naturally, you came here."  
  
"You want me to go?" Bucky asks, barking this like a threat.  
  
"No, no. I'm just. I'm glad you came here. Hold this, alright?" He guides Bucky's human hand back to the dish towel. "Keep pressure on it. I'll be right back."  
  
Steve runs to the hall bathroom for medical supplies, hating that he has to take his eyes off Bucky for even a moment. When he returns, Bucky is where he left him, slumped against the kitchen cabinets, listless on the floor.  
  
"It doesn't look like you've lost that much blood," Steve says as he cleans the wound, first with soap and water and then antibacterial ointment. "Why are you so--?" He pauses there, because maybe it's just an act. Maybe Bucky only wants him to think he's as weak as he appears so he can spring an unexpected attack on Steve. But if he wanted Steve dead he could have let him drown. Maybe he just needs an excuse to be here, limp and resigned to Steve's care.  
  
"They give -- gave me medicine," Bucky says after a stretch of silence, mumbling. "Injections. I don't know what it was, but it kept me alive. Was their way of making sure I didn't go off the program. Without it I'll die within a month. So I'm dying, looks like."  
  
"No, you're not. We'll figure out what they were using. We've got Hydra operatives in prison."  
  
"They won't talk."  
  
So far, this has been true, in Steve's attempts to get them to give him information about where Bucky might be. Now he's here, maybe for longer than ten minutes this time, and Steve will be damned if he lets Hydra's contingency plan kill him. He dries Bucky's neck with a clean cloth and puts a bandage over the wound. When he's done, the comfort of having a task at hand departing, he stays on the kitchen floor, squatting there and listening to the ragged push of Bucky's breath. His hair is hanging in his face. He smells like he's been living in a gutter.  
  
"Do you want to clean up?" Steve asks. "You could sit in the bath tub while I try to get in touch with someone about this medicine thing, someone who can help--"  
  
"There's no cleaning me up," Bucky mutters. "Don't know why I bothered with the neck. I'm done. Good riddance."  
  
"No." Steve says, as simply and authoritatively as he can. "I'm not losing you again. Not gonna happen."  
  
"Did you not hear me?" Every time Bucky meets Steve's eyes he looks like he wants to kill, which is an improvement over the times when he actually did want to kill Steve, because then he'd looked fairly indifferent about it, distant and cool. "You already lost your friend for good. That guy, the museum film -- I don't know him."  
  
"But you know me." Steve squeezes Bucky's good arm, unblinking in the face of his angry stare. "You know me."  
  
"Knew. Past tense."  
  
"You're only starting to remember, it's just--"  
  
"Starting to remember lots of things. Stuff that makes a rock solid case for the death penalty. So if you're sentimental about your friend, let his body die here. I just need a quiet place to let what they did to me finally finish the job."  
  
"See, there," Steve says. "What they did to you. So you understand. It wasn't you. They invaded you, used you, hurt you--"  
  
"They invaded him, you thick-headed ass! Your friend, the dead guy, he's the one who got played! I'm the shell of what they made when they hollowed him out. You want me to stay here, want some fucking closure with this face I'm wearing? Fine, but stop thinking you can resurrect him. And trust me when I say you wouldn't want to. The guy wasn't a killer, you're right. He'd tear at himself with his bare hands until there was nothing left if he had to face what they made him do."  
  
Bucky turns away from Steve, the tension draining from shoulders. He's breathing heavily again, has worked himself up. Steve is no psychologist, but he knows a defense mechanism when he sees one. Right now he's mostly concerned with the physical issue, getting Bucky whatever medicine he needs to survive, but he's willing to be delicate with the mental elements, too. He's got to be, or Bucky will do what he's threatening to: tear himself apart with the force of his inherited guilt.  
  
"Okay," Steve says, nodding. "Alright. Fair enough. Obviously you don't want me calling you by his name. Is there something else I should call you? I don't think I could manage 'Winter Soldier,' but maybe another name?"  
  
Bucky broods in silence for a while, his eyebrows pinching. Steve is eager to spring up and get to the phone, start calling whoever he can to find out who they can press for information about Bucky's medical needs, but he has to do this first. He has to agree to play this out on Bucky's terms. Bucky is owed that much, after so many years of being used as a nameless weapon.  
  
"Did anyone ever call you Barnes?" Steve asks.  
  
"No."  
  
"Well. Would it bother you if I called you that? It was my friend's name, but I never thought of him that way. And you are in, uh. His body."  
  
"Fine." Bucky seems to be losing the ability to sit up straight, and Steve's heart plummets. He can't be dying already; they're just at the beginning of what has to be his healing process. Steve won't even consider that it could be the beginning of anything less important, and it can't be the end.  
  
"Alright," Steve says, sliding his arm around Bucky's back. He's terrified but unwilling to let it show. He has to believe that Bucky will be okay until he can convince Bucky to believe it, too. "Barnes, then. C'mon, you need rest."  
  
Bucky allows Steve to help him into the bedroom, and Steve doesn't hesitate to deposit the stinking mess of him onto his sheets. He'll clean the whole thing up later, Bucky and all. For now he's got a new mission to focus on: find Bucky's medicine, administer it, and try to call him 'Barnes' in the meantime. That last incentive may prove to be the hardest. Steve hopes so, at least.  
  
When Bucky is asleep Steve dashes out of the room, already dialing Sam on his cell phone. He returns to the kitchen and is gut-punched with the bloody mess Bucky left on the floor and cabinets. If he really doesn't want to be tracked, hiding out at Captain America's known place of residence isn't the smoothest move. Cutting out the tracker was about something else, Steve would wager. He just hopes it was an act of freedom, independence, and not self harm.  
  
"What's--"  
  
"Bucky's here and he's sick," Steve says before Sam can finish his usual greeting. "They were giving him something, a drug, I don't know what it was, he cut a tracker out of the back of his neck--"  
  
"Whoa, whoa, okay. Take a breath, Cap. The Winter -- Bucky is there?"  
  
"Yes. He passed out. I don't know how sick he is. Do you know a doctor we can trust?"  
  
"I do. She might not be, um. I mean, we dated."  
  
"Well, next choice, then, because I need someone now and--"  
  
"I trust her," Sam says, speaking firmly, and Steve tries to reel himself in. His mind is a fragmented mess of relief that Bucky is asleep in his bed -- Steve keeps peeking at the open doorway to make sure he's still there -- and horror over the idea that he might not wake up.  
  
"Bring her here, then," Steve says. "I need him examined, and in the meantime we need to start grilling the Hydra ops in custody about what they were giving him to keep him alive. It some kind of serum. He took it intravenously."  
  
"Hold up," Sam says. "I'm all for grilling Hydra, but are you sure you want anybody knowing your buddy is there? They're going to want to lock him up, Steve. To make sure he's as deprogrammed as you think he is."  
  
"Speaking for them or for yourself?" Steve asks, and he winces when he hears the unfounded accusation in his voice. "Sorry. Of course you're going to have doubts -- anyone would. I can't explain why I trust this feeling, but I know he's not dangerous anymore. It's in him, this change. This crippling guilt. I know him, Sam."  
  
"Okay, I'm aware. But you said so when he had a knife at your neck, too."  
  
"Sam, I need you to trust me right now. Can you do that?"  
  
"Maybe." Sam sighs. "But not enough to bring my doctor friend around to see a patient who might try to attack her."  
  
"Okay,” Steve says, irritated by the fact that Sam didn't think of that before he suggested her. "I think I know another guy, actually."  
  
"I'm coming over when I'm done with my shift here," Sam says. "Unless you don't want me to."  
  
"No, it's a good idea. Come over. I need -- he needs -- we need you."  
  
"Mhmm. Who's this doctor you're going to call? Won't he be at risk, too?"  
  
"I think this guy could take Bucky, if anything goes wrong."  
  
When Steve gets off the phone with Sam he walks to the bedroom door. Bucky hasn't moved, and he's still breathing. Steve sits on the floor, his back to the door frame, and sends a text to Natasha.  
  
 _I need to contact Bruce Banner asap. Emergency_  
  
Six minutes later, his phone is ringing.  
  
"Dr. Banner?" he says, speaking softly as he crawls out of the bedroom doorway.  
  
"You presume," Natasha says. "Incorrectly, I'm afraid."  
  
"Natasha, good. I need your help."  
  
"Really. I heard you need Bruce Banner's. What's going on, Cap?"  
  
Standing in the kitchen in sight of Bucky's drying blood, he fills her in on the past few weeks. She listens in silence and sighs when he's done.  
  
"So this is why you haven't called Sharon."  
  
"Natasha, did you hear me? He could die."  
  
"How does he know? They told him before injecting him, 'better not try to run away because without this you'll die?'"  
  
"Well. Yeah, presumably."  
  
"Uh-huh. That's classic mind control bullshit. It was probably a placebo, just part of their lies to keep him chained up."  
  
"God willing, but what if it's not? He's a mess, he's weak. I had to help him to bed."  
  
"Why don't you ask him about the last time he had a normal meal? I'm sure they were feeding him intravenously between missions. He's probably not used to providing himself with basic nutrients. That would make anyone weak. Even you've got to eat."  
  
"He's not me."  
  
"I know, but he's superhuman. Well, his arm is. Still mostly human, though. Like you."  
  
Steve is beginning to dislike her deductive tone. He clears his throat and can envision her smiling slowly in response, working things out in her unblinking way.  
  
"So that's a thing," she says. "You have your friend back."  
  
"Ha. Not exactly. He won't even let me call him by his name."  
  
"Maybe it doesn't feel like his name anymore," she says, and there's an edge to it that he appreciates, because she's actually defending Bucky.  
  
"I understand that," Steve says. "I'm playing along."  
  
"Playing along? Man, I know you're, like, Atlas in the flesh, but I'm not thrilled with the thought of you holding all this on your shoulders. It's a lot. He's -- damaged doesn't even begin to cover it. Obviously."  
  
"Right, but who else is going to take care of him? SHIELD is dismantled. Fury is-- Well, Bucky tried to kill Fury, so even if he was here, probably not a good candidate. It's up to me, and I'm okay with that. I'm happy about it, even. It's not like I've had any other jobs since the sky fell."  
  
"That's real poetic, Cap."  
  
"Laugh all you want, but I really do want Banner to check him out. Do you think he'd be willing?"  
  
"He's a scientist, so I'd be surprised if he wasn't at least interested."  
  
"Great! Can you get in touch with him, then? I never did get his contact information."  
  
"Yeah, a lot of us relied on SHIELD for networking purposes. But I think I could swing it."  
  
"Excellent. Thank you. Are you heading this way anytime soon? Maybe you could escort him?"  
  
"What, you miss me?" She's definitely smiling now; he can hear it in her voice when she smiles.  
  
"Sure I do. We made a good team, didn't we?"  
  
"Uh-huh. Look. Don't take your eyes off the Winter Soldier. I know you want to nurse your buddy back to health, but the Soldier's got to be threaded pretty deep. He might be watching you through Bucky's eyes."  
  
Steve doesn't want to concede that, though he knows she might be right. The thought that he could have Bucky back is intoxicating, and he's never had a single bad association with Bucky. Even the potential complications of their boyhood kissing had seemed immune to criticism, too sweet and simple to mean anything was wrong. But he can't let his good memories of the real Bucky work his guard all the way down. He's got to keep his head on straight.  
  
With this in mind, he returns to his room and watches Bucky sleep for three hours, praying that Banner will arrive soon.  
  
*  
  
When Sam knocks on the apartment's front door, Bucky startles awake and Steve snaps out of his own drowsy daze. He gets to his feet and holds his hands out when Bucky meets his eyes, as if to catch him when he breaks for the door.   
  
“Someone's coming,” Bucky says when Sam knocks again. He looks like he's considering his escape routes, still lying on his side but tensed, ready to leap to action.   
  
“It's just my friend,” Steve says. “He's – he--” Suddenly he can't remember why he wanted Sam to come over at all. Bucky's eyes darken, and his metal hand curls into a fist over his hip. “It's fine,” Steve says, a bit sharply. “He won't bother you if you just want to keep resting in here.”   
  
Bucky says nothing, and Sam knocks again. Steve closes the bedroom door only halfway as he leaves the room, giving Bucky privacy but not enough of it to escape without notice. If Bucky wants to leave he's going to find a way, but Steve would like to see him go this time, if he's gonna.  
  
"I brought stuff for dinner," Sam says when Steve answers the door. He's carrying a tote bag full of groceries and lingering in the hallway like he's not sure he should come inside.  
  
"Sounds great," Steve says. He pulls Sam into an awkward half-hug by way of encouraging him to enter. "He's in the bedroom," Steve says, whispering. Sam snorts and pulls back to give Steve a searching look.  
  
"You sure this is a good idea?" Sam asks.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Me making dinner for you and the W.S."  
  
"Don't call him that. Call him -- Barnes, we decided. Just come in, it's fine."  
  
Sam starts unloading the groceries in the kitchen and Steve creeps back to the bedroom to check on Bucky. He already feels ridiculous, straddled between the two worlds that his new friend and his old friend represent. Sam brings groceries almost every time he comes over, and it's a form of charity that makes Steve uncomfortable, but he needs the company and Sam won't take no for an answer when it comes to the sundry deliveries. Steve curses when he pushes the bedroom door open and sees the bed empty, the window open.  
  
"Buck -- Barnes?" he says, speaking quietly. He walks to the window and peeks out, hoping to at least catch a glimpse of him bolting away. Bucky was in no shape to bolt, and Steve makes a horrified choking sound when he looks down and sees Bucky splayed out on the ground in the alley below, motionless, as if he fell from the second floor. "Bucky!" Steve shouts, unable to call him anything but his real name as panic overtakes him. Bucky makes no response, and Steve is already in mid-leap, hurtling down into the alley and praying Bucky didn't crack his skull when he landed.  
  
Bucky is breathing but out of it, his head lolling when Steve lifts him slightly, checking for injuries. He seems to have braced for the fall with his metal arm, which might have saved his life. The pavement is cratered where his arm made impact.  
  
"Can you hear me?" Steve asks, pushing Bucky's dank hair out his face. "Are you okay? You fell-- What the heck were you thinking? Huh? You're in no shape to scale the side of a building."  
  
Bucky just moans, and he hisses when Steve tests his ribs, trying to feel for breaks. He could take Bucky to the hospital, but what then? They won't let him leave once they realize he's the masked figure with the metal arm who demolished half the city.  
  
"Steve?"  
  
That's Sam, calling from the Steve's bedroom window. Steve looks up and sighs, cradling Bucky's limp body against him.  
  
"I'm bringing him back up," Steve says, because he has no idea what else he can do.  
  
"He's hurt?"  
  
"Not badly. Might have a couple of broken ribs, though."  
  
"Stop yelling," Bucky says, muttering. His eyes are closed, and he sounds so suddenly and remarkably like his old self that Steve's hopes skyrocket, his heart ballooning with relief that's almost painful. "You're loud," Bucky says. "S'hurting my head."  
  
"Gonna take you inside now, everything's okay."  
  
Steve feels insane as he carries Bucky back into the building. An older gentleman holds the door for him on the way in and he mumbles a thank you, too embarrassed to meet the man's eyes. Upstairs, Sam is waiting in the open doorway to Steve's apartment, looking like he thinks Steve is insane, too.  
  
"He's delirious," Steve says as he brings Bucky into the apartment. "He needs food, and water." Steve wants to believe that's all that's wrong here, that Natasha was right about the injections being a psychological trick and not an actual biological necessity. He brings Bucky into the kitchen and sits him on the counter. Bucky is wincing, touching his chest. "Broken?" Steve asks when he sees Bucky feeling for the damage to his ribs. Bucky cracks his eyes open and stares at Steve, looking hateful and distant again, like the Soldier has recovered enough to reinstall himself in the pilot seat.  
  
"Water," Sam says, appearing with a glass filled from the tap. Bucky eyes it, then Sam.  
  
"Who's this guy?" he asks, presumably directing the question to Steve.  
  
"My friend," Steve says, his voice sharpening now that he's dealing with the Soldier again.  
  
"You may remember trying to kill me," Sam says. "That happened a couple times."  
  
"Sam," Steve says. Bucky seems unmoved. "Drink the water," Steve says. "When's the last time you bothered to hydrate?"  
  
"Can't say I remember." Bucky grabs the water and gulps it down, staring at Sam from over the rim of the glass as he does. Sam stares back, his arms crossed over his chest like he's ready to resume the fight that cost his flight suit a wing.  
  
"Now something to eat," Steve says, turning for the cabinet. "Just to hold you over. We're gonna get a real meal into you."  
  
"You're wasting your time. This body is decaying."  
  
"Yeah, yeah. Here, this will work." Steve grabs three slices of white bread from a slightly stale pack and brings them to Bucky, who just glowers at them. "Eat," Steve says, taking Bucky's human hand and pressing the bread into it. Having a direct command seems to activate Bucky's years of obedience training, and he eats each slice of bread in four efficient bites, accepting refilled glasses of tap water from Sam between each one.  
  
"This is kind of nuts," Sam says, and Steve gives him a look. He's not wrong, but there's no need to say what they're all already thinking. Sam shrugs. "I'm gonna cook now," he says. "You want to, uh. Get him cleaned up?"  
  
In his panic over Bucky's fall, Steve stopped noticing the awful stink of him. He nods and looks at Bucky, who is glancing back and forth between Sam and Steve as if he's working out which of them to kill first. He's too weak to even walk to the bathroom by himself, and seems irritated as Steve helps him there, though he doesn't protest.  
  
"Okay," Steve says when he's helped Bucky to sit on the floor near the tub. "I'm gonna run you a bath."  
  
Bucky says nothing. He's staring into space, probably humiliated. Steve sighs and turns on the water, adjusts the temperature. He's tempted to add bubbles so that Bucky will have a soapy layer of privacy once he's naked in the water, but that's absurd. "Need help getting undressed?" Steve asks.  
  
"You want to wash this guy's body, by my guest," Bucky says. "I'm finished maintaining it. My only remaining mission is to let it expire."  
  
"That's--" Steve shakes his head. He's not going to entertain that kind of talk right now, just needs to get rid of this godawful smell and get Bucky to eat again, then sleep. After that he has no clue, but it's good to have something to do with his hands in the short term, even if it's awkwardly undressing a friend he used to kiss sometimes.  
  
"I am sorry for your loss," Bucky says when he's naked on the floor, Steve red-faced and checking the water temperature.  
  
"Sorry?" Steve half turns, dreading the moment when he'll have to lift naked Bucky into the water.  
  
"For James Barnes, the guy from the film at the museum. I'm sorry that you lost him. Got to where I just didn't have the energy to keep him alive anymore, inside."  
  
"Oh." Steve can't keep hearing things like that, from him. It's like he's being gently crumpled into a ball over a period of days, becoming smaller and more irreversibly crushed all the time. "Well. I appreciate, um. I'm glad you tried. Gonna help you into the water now."  
  
Bucky feels light in his arms; Steve didn't even notice before, too worried about Bucky's condition to think straight. Even if Banner shows up and pronounces him physically healthy and only a little malnourished, several lifetimes of mental damage has been done, and Steve hasn't yet figured out how either of them can start to pick up the pieces. All he can do, now, is this: he washes Bucky with a soapy rag while he sits slumped in the water, his hair hanging in his face. When his skin is clean, Steve gives him a vigorous shampooing, then gets his shaving things from the mirrored cabinet over the sink. The water is growing lukewarm, so Steve adds some more heat; the steam will be good for the shave. Out in the kitchen he can hear Sam moving about, pans on the stove and the whine of the oven door that needs oiling.  
  
"Do you mind?" Steve asks when he's foaming up the shaving cream, his razor sitting on the rim of the tub. He's mindful of it, nervous to have it so close to Bucky, and not because he thinks Bucky will hurt him. He's openly determined to hurt himself. Bucky glances over at Steve, frowning a little.  
  
"Mind what? I don't care, shave it all off. How many ways do I have to say that I'm not invested in this--"  
  
"This body, yes, okay, I got it." Steve glances down at Bucky's lap and clears his throat. Bucky has an erection that they've both been trying to ignore.  
  
"That's automatic," Bucky says, sounding a little defensive. "Nobody's touched this body -- like that. In a while."  
  
"I was just cleaning you up." Now Steve is defensive. Bucky seems to sense this. He smiles a little, cruelly.  
  
"You could help me with it if you want," he says. "It's a not the worst of the pain I'm in, but it doesn't feel great."  
  
"Just be still. I'm going to shave you face."  
  
"Whatever you want."  
  
Steve isn't comfortable being told he can do whatever he wants to Bucky, or to anyone. He's careful with the razor, and it's a smooth shave, probably because it's been a while. The short hairs that wash from the razor litter the bathwater, and Steve brushes a few from Bucky's damp chest. He meets Bucky's eyes, not even sure what he wants to see there now.  
  
"You must be the loneliest sap in the world," Bucky says.  
  
"At least I know how to clean myself. You have to do this once a day, all right? Once you're well enough. If you're going to stay here."  
  
"I'd prefer to rot away naturally in bed."  
  
"Well, I'm telling you that you can't. Okay, you're done for now. Can you stand?"  
  
He can, though he's shaky and wincing again. When he's out of the tub, he stands on bath mat dripping, and he stares at the towel when Steve offers it.  
  
"I'm okay with being wet," he says.  
  
"You'll catch cold," Steve says, though he feels like he's playing into a trap here, or a joke at his expense. He dries Bucky off, trying not to look down at the persisting erection. He's not exactly surprised when Bucky takes his hand and brings it there. "What," Steve says, staring at the shower curtain from over Bucky's shoulder. He can't seem to get his hand to uncurl from the heat of Bucky's cock, as if he's touched an electric charge, all of his muscles locking up tightly.  
  
"You used to love his dick," Bucky says. "It's still here, for a limited time."  
  
"You're--" Steve says, and he has to stop himself from saying 'insane,' because that would be extremely insensitive, if true. "I've never. We didn't do this."  
  
"You did other things," Bucky says, murmuring this near Steve's ear. "Man, he loved you. Little Steve in his lap after he'd had a couple of beers. Poor bony kid who'd never been kissed by a girl. I had access to those memories for a while. You were sweet, back then."  
  
"I never could predict when he would do that." Steve swallows heavily, still staring at the shower curtain, still holding Bucky's dick like it's glued to his palm. "Used to feel guilty after, like he was making himself do that stuff for my sake."  
  
"Oh, no. He loved it."  
  
The lingering steam in the bathroom is beginning to make Steve feel feverish, and Bucky's gaze feels white hot. Steve won't look at him, but he could do this, maybe, move his hand or something. Back then the boldest he'd gotten was to rub his own hardness against Bucky's, through their pants, kissing the whole time. Bucky used to laugh a little when Steve got really worked up. Steve would bite Bucky's lip in retaliation. Not hard; just to show him he wasn't some dumb kid. He was learning how to want all the real things he could get. Bucky was the only one giving them, and the only one Steve wanted them from, anyway.  
  
"Are you whistling?" Bucky says when Steve's hand starts moving.  
  
He is, involuntarily at first, then as a kind of lifeline to sanity. Steve looks at the back corner of the bathroom, at a spot near the wall where there's a wisp of cobweb that needs clearing away, and whistles an old Glenn Miller tune while he jerks Bucky's cock in the most incidental way possible. Bucky seems amused at first, then he gets breathless, and it doesn't take long for him to go off, shooting all over Steve's jeans. He shudders and crumples forward, letting Steve catch him and hold him while he gasps against Steve's shoulder.  
  
"God," Bucky says, clawing at Steve's T-shirt like he's still feeling it, shaking all over. "Christ."  
  
"Yeah." Steve just wants to stay like this for a while, though the sounds from the kitchen have stopped and Sam must be wondering what that whistling was about, if he heard it. "Been a while for me, too," Steve mutters. He's hard inside his jeans and there's no way he's letting Bucky do anything about it. He pulls free and wipes at the mess on his jeans before wrapping the towel around Bucky's waist. "Wait here," he says, meeting Bucky's eyes for the first time since he touched his dick. He mostly looks drowsy, maybe even grateful. "I'll get you some clean clothes."  
  
"Sure thing," Bucky mutters, and Steve goes.  
  
He's in his bedroom in two strides, closing the door hard behind him before Sam can call out a question. He walks to the corner, unzipping on the way, and braces his forearm against the wall as he pulls out his dick with his other hand. He's just got to take care of this, quickly, but it's weird to do it standing up and his mind is lingering on the presence of Bucky in the bathroom and Sam in the kitchen, and the fact that it feels like they both must know what's going on in here, though probably only Bucky could guess. He pinches his eyes shut tight and tries to return to those weekend afternoons and evenings when Bucky suggested 'kissing practice,' because Steve was gonna fill out soon, for sure, and when he did he'd need to show the ladies who came running that he knew what he was doing. Steve was terrified of girls but Bucky was so safe. He would whisper "like this," "go slower," and "you get so stiff," his palm resting over the shape of Steve's dick. The best feeling in the world was sliding forward, rubbing his cock against Bucky's and clinging so hard, fireworks going off inside him, so much better than when he did it himself, post-orgasm asthma attack optional.  
  
He sprays the wall when he comes and feels fifteen again, idiotic. It's miserable coming down from this feeling alone, without Bucky to rub his back and say "Breathe, Steve, there you go." After they stopped doing it, Steve had muttered one sad and vague request months later, and Bucky said something pat about how it was too dangerous because of the asthma, that he wouldn't want to be responsible for killing Steve via too much excitement. He'd winked, grinned, and that was it. Bucky had girlfriends then, grown women who were already after him at sixteen. The following year Bucky stopped sharing a bed with Steve the way they had since they were kids, and Steve missed the warm scent of Bucky on his pillow even more than the kissing.  
  
Tissues do a poor job of cleaning the wall, but he can fix it later. He'll repaint the whole damn room if he has to. He pulls the sheets off the bed and heaps them on the floor. They smell like the filthy Soldier that Steve tried to wash off Bucky's skin. He knows it's not that easy, and that being invited to jerk Bucky off is not necessarily a good sign, or something he should have done.  
  
When he's changed his pants he returns to the bathroom with clean clothes for Bucky, ignoring Sam's questioning stare from the kitchen. In the bathroom, Bucky has allowed the towel Steve put around his waist to drop onto the floor, and he's examining the contents of Steve's medicine cabinet.  
  
"Here," Steve says, shutting the door behind him. "Clothes."  
  
"You don't have any aspirin," Bucky says.  
  
"I'll get you some, but you should eat first. You need food on your stomach when you take medicine. How did they, uh. Feed you, during missions?"  
  
"They gave me money and I bought and consumed food. Imagine that. I don't have any money now." He discards the underwear Steve offered and puts on the pants, a soft pair of gray flannel, and the T-shirt.  
  
"What have you got against underwear?" Steve asks, retrieving them from the floor.  
  
"Got used to doing without them."  
  
"Hydra didn't want you in underwear?"  
  
"I don't think they cared. The fewer non-essential accessories the better. Why are you staring at me like that?"  
  
"I'm -- not." For a second there he'd seemed normal, if not like the old Bucky. "Come on, let's eat."  
  
Out in the kitchen, Sam is pulling a casserole pan of what looks like mac and cheese from the oven. It smells delicious and seems perfect; Steve wants to eat five bowls as soon as possible. He goes to the fridge for the milk and notices that Sam has brought some beers as well. There's one open on the counter, and Sam drinks from it as he watches Steve pour two glasses of milk. Bucky is loitering near the bar that looks into the kitchen, looking half-asleep.  
  
"This is the most popular comfort food at the VA," Sam says as he plates up the mac and cheese. "Figured it would be a good start."  
  
"I really appreciate it," Steve says. He hasn't eaten since last night, dinner with Sam. "Have a seat," he says when he brings Bucky his glass of milk. He nods to the dining room table, which is never used. Steve and Sam usually eat on the couch, watching the news.  
  
"I'll take a beer," Bucky says, pushing the milk back into Steve's hand.  
  
"No," Steve says. He holds out the milk again, and holds Bucky's gaze. If they have to play act like Steve is Bucky's commander now, he can do that, for Bucky's own good. "Drink this. Sit down. You can have a beer after dinner. Maybe."  
  
Steve hears Sam try to contain an amused sound of disbelief when Bucky does as Steve asked, glowering on his way to the table with the milk. Steve turns to give Sam a pleading look, not wanting whatever is happening remarked upon at the moment, and Sam holds up in his hands in a surrendering gesture.  
  
"I'd like to say a few words," Steve says when they're all seated at the table, plates heaped with steaming mac and cheese in front of them. Bucky and Sam both look at him like he just threw up on the dinner table. Steve frowns. "I'll keep it brief, okay? I'd just like to say that I feel very lucky, after what all of us have been through, to be sitting down to a meal with you guys. I don't know what the future is going to bring, don't even know what I'm going to do with my days now that SHIELD is gone, but having you both here, like this, makes me feel hopeful. Alright, that's it."  
  
"Very good, Cap," Sam says, lifting his beer in Steve's direction before drinking. Bucky is poking at the mac and cheese with his fork, frowning.  
  
"What is this?" Bucky says. "I can't eat this."  
  
"It's macaroni and cheese," Steve says. "Like the Kraft kind from the box, only way better."  
  
"Maybe he's lactose intolerant," Sam says, and Steve gives him a look.  
  
"Try it," Steve says, turning back to Bucky. "I'm not giving you beer on an empty stomach."  
  
"Hydra let you drink beer?" Sam says. Steve goes tense; every possible question they could ask Bucky seems too personal, an invitation to break down.  
  
"No," Bucky says, still just poking at the mac and cheese. He forks some and sniffs it. "Bucky Barnes liked beer. I have his tongue. I'd also like to get drunk and pass out, if that's even possible."  
  
Steve thinks it's probably not, but now doesn't seem like the time to say so. Bucky takes a bite of the mac and cheese. Steve gives Sam a look, begging him not to say anything upsetting. Sam's eyebrows are slightly lifted as he watches Bucky chew and swallow.  
  
"That meet with your approval?" Sam asks. Bucky grunts and eats another bite in answer. Sam grins.  
  
The remainder of dinner is awkward but not as excruciating as Steve feared. Bucky eats two platefuls of mac and cheese. Steve and Sam both help themselves to three. There's some muttered conversation between them about the cleanup effort in the city, possible career moves for Steve, and the weather. Bucky remains silent, hunched over his plate while he eats like he might need to protect it from thieves. When the meal is over, Sam wastes no time heading for the door, and Steve walks him out.  
  
"What the hell happens now, man?" Sam asks when they reach the top of the stairwell.   
  
"He deserves a chance to rest,” Steve says. "He's putting up this front like I'm supposed to believe he's not Bucky anymore. That's okay, for now -- I think he needs to pretend. Too much to deal with, otherwise. All I can worry about now is him being physically okay. I've got a doctor friend who's going to check him out, hopefully."  
  
"Damn." Sam rubs his hand over his face, sighs. "Well, here's one way to look at it. I ever get brainwashed into being an assassin and try to kill you and everyone you care about multiple times, you won't end our friendship over it. That's good to know."  
  
"Sam."  
  
"Sorry, Cap. Just trying to lighten the mood a little. I mean it, though, you're a good friend. Just don't forget to look out for yourself, too. I guess I feel pretty confident that he's not gonna try to knife you, since he made it through that meal without coming at either of us with the sharp end of his fork, but there's a mental component, too. Don't let him drive you crazy."  
  
"You already think I'm crazy."  
  
"Well. What was up with that whistling?"  
  
"Don't ask. Come again tomorrow night?"  
  
"Of course." Sam gives Steve's shoulder a squeeze. "You're not alone with this, all right?"  
  
"All right. I know. Thank you."  
  
Steve returns to the apartment, drained and a little afraid that he'll find Bucky in the alley again, trying to crawl out into traffic. He's relieved to see Bucky where he left him: at the kitchen table, sitting there with his empty mac and cheese plate.  
  
"How about we do the dishes," Steve says. "Then we can both have a beer."  
  
Bucky stands without a word and brings his plate to the sink. Steve gathers the others, and it's bizarre to do something so commonplace with his dead friend at his side. Stranger still to think that a few hours ago he had Bucky's dick in his hand.  
  
"How are you feeling?" Steve asks when he hands Bucky a beer, feeling weird about this but wanting to reward him for a night of relatively good behavior. Bucky drinks from it and shrugs.  
  
"Prolonging the inevitable," he says.  
  
"How so?"  
  
"I'm dying. I can feel it, bone deep. You think you're going to save me with macaroni and cheese and cold milk? What I can't seem to get through your head is that the guy you want to save is already gone."  
  
"I believe you, just--"  
  
"You're a terrible liar. You look at me and see him, whole cloth. That's understandable. I'm going to drink this beer and then sleep for as long as you'll let me. Maybe I'll slip away tonight, nice and peaceful. Give your old friend a good funeral when I've vacated this body, and don't feel guilty. You did what you could. Goodnight."  
  
Bucky wanders over to the living room window to admire the view and drink his beer. Steve feels almost angry with him, but he'd want to give up, too, if he'd hurt so many people against his will. He puts the bedsheets in the washing machine and spreads a fresh set onto the bed. By the time he's done, Bucky has finished his beer, and he climbs under the blankets without looking at Steve, who wonders if he should sleep on the couch. He remembers what Sam said about taking care of himself, too, and gets in beside Bucky after he's brushed his teeth and turned out the lights in the kitchen.  
  
"Like old times," Steve says, wishing he could escape into the fuzz of the beer himself. He and Bucky are turned away from each other, a vast stretch of mattress between them.  
  
"Old times?" Bucky mutters after a few moments of stubborn silence.  
  
"When I'd stay over at your -- at Bucky's place. I'd sleep in his bed. We'd stay up talking and the bed would feel like this raft we were on together, just me and Bucky, floating through the dark."  
  
Bucky doesn't say anything, doesn't even grunt. Steve can feel a change in the air when he falls asleep, some of the room's tightly packed tension seeping away. He's out cold himself not long afterward.  
  
When he wakes up the room is dark and Bucky is thrashing. Steve whirls toward him expecting to see a Hydra operative with his hands around Bucky's throat, but the enemy he's fighting is in a nightmare. He pretty much expects what he gets when he tries to wake Bucky: a cold metal hand on his neck, shutting of his air supply with one efficient crunch. It will leave a bruise that might not heal by morning. Steve could probably throw Bucky across the room, but he'd rather not, so he tries grabbing Bucky's face first, looking into his wild half-awake eyes.  
  
"Bucky," he tries to say, but that's the wrong name. "Bah -- Barnes, please--"  
  
Consciousness snaps into Bucky's eyes, and for a moment he looks completely untethered, outside of time and body and lost in the dark that their raft once protected them from.  
  
"Jesus," Bucky says, his voice suddenly as soft as a ghost's. His metal fingers uncurl, and Steve takes a heaving breath. "Don't call me that," Bucky says, and Steve isn't sure which name he's objecting to, but he has a gnawing suspicion.  
  
"Bucky?" he tries, his voice ragged.  
  
"Steve? What -- where--"  
  
Steve reaches for Bucky, desperate to console him while he's still like this -- himself, restored, Steve can see it even in the dark -- but Bucky vaults away before Steve can touch him. He flings himself out of the bed, and Steve runs after him, so unwilling to let him go now that he'll chase him to the ends of the earth if he has to. But Bucky isn't trying to leave the apartment. He runs into the bathroom, flings the toilet seat up and throws up violently as Steve sinks down to sit on the floor behind him.  
  
"Okay, okay," Steve says when Bucky gets sick again, everything he ate at dinner exiting at full force. "That's okay," Steve says, though he fears that it isn't. He sweeps one side of Bucky's hair back from his face, then the other, and holds it for him when he throws up again, and again. Finally there seems to be nothing left, and Bucky pants into the toilet bowl. He spits a few times while Steve rubs his back with his free hand, still holding Bucky's hair with the other.  
  
"Fuck," Bucky says, very softly, his eyes sliding shut. He flushes the toilet and leans back a little, closer to Steve.  
  
"How about some water?" Steve asks, still stroking Bucky's back. He's glad that Bucky is allowing it, not entirely sure what's happening.  
  
"Mhm," Bucky says, and Steve stands, glad that he's got a glass near the sink. It's clean enough; he fills it with tap water and kneels on the floor again, offering it to Bucky. He wants to touch Bucky again but makes himself hang back a little while Bucky swishes the water around in his mouth and spits into the toilet a few times. Bucky flushes again and gulps from the glass of water.  
  
"Slower, okay?" Steve says, murmuring this, and Bucky obeys, switching to little sips from the glass. Though it was upsetting to watch him be ill, possibly a sign of the sickness that he claims will kill him, there's something cozy about this moment, and it's floating around Steve like soft music, making him feel like things might be okay after all. It's the comfort, he realizes, of being able to take care of Bucky.  
  
"I can't do this," Bucky says, speaking to the empty glass. He's observing it as if it's a curious artifact, and Steve can't help picturing him breaking it on the floor, using one jagged shard to slice his human arm open from the wrist to the elbow.  
  
"I know," Steve says. "Not alone, you can't. But you're with me now. And I'm not going to let you die."  
  
"It's not dying I'm worried about. It's everything else."  
  
"We're gonna find a way, together. Let's get you back in bed. Unless you think you'll get sick again?"  
  
"I was dreaming about the surgery." Bucky stands, leaving the glass on the floor. He holds his metal arm out and flexes his fingers. "I was awake, during."  
  
"They were monsters, and you were -- they tortured you. You didn't do anything wrong."  
  
"I fell," Bucky says. His voice sounds flat again, and he walks past Steve, back into the bedroom. Steve follows, feeling foolishly desperate. For a moment he'd actually allowed himself to believe that something or other had snapped Bucky back into place.  
  
"You remember falling?" Steve asks, sliding back into bed. Bucky is lying on his side again, facing away from him.  
  
"Of course I remember. It's still happening. I keep thinking I've landed, and then the bottom falls out and there's even deeper, darker, lower places to go."  
  
"Buck, don't--"  
  
"You're doing it again."  
  
"Doing what?"  
  
"Calling me by a dead man's name. Stop."  
  
"Sorry. Old habits." Steve isn't crushed; he saw Bucky in the dark after that dream, and felt him when he was leaning onto the toilet bowl, letting Steve touch him. The Soldier is like a shell that can retract and return, and Bucky needs it too much right now for Steve to resent that. He moves over, watching Bucky's shoulders. He doesn't tense up when Steve gets close, but Steve can feel him noticing the approach, tracking his movements. "Can I see something?" Steve asks.  
  
"What."  
  
"The arm." It's the only part of Bucky that Steve didn't soap up in the bath. He doesn't like touching it: the weight, the cool temperature. Bucky remains motionless, but doesn't resist when Steve turns him over gently, onto his back and then onto his side again, facing Steve now. The arm stretches down along Bucky's side, its fingers curled into a metal fist. "It's kinda beautiful," Steve says, putting his fingertips on the shoulder.  
  
"You're a lousy liar."  
  
"No -- I know. But it saved you earlier, I think, when you fell from the window. So I have to love it. Why'd you try to leave, anyway?"  
  
"Stranger at the door."  
  
"I told you, he's my friend."  
  
Steve is touching the arm carefully, running his fingers down over its metal ridges, then up again. He might be imagining things, but he feels like he can hear it humming, a faint undercurrent like a mechanical heartbeat. He chances a look up at Bucky's face and is surprised to see that his eyes are closed and soft at the corners. He's calm but awake, his lips twitching.  
  
"Can you feel it?" Steve asks, caressing the arm again.  
  
"There are sensors," Bucky says, mumbling. "But it's not like feeling something on my skin. It's different."  
  
"You want me to stop? Let you sleep?"  
  
"Do whatever you want."  
  
"But what do you want?"  
  
"Right now? For you to shut your trap. Put your hands wherever you like, but stop talking, for God's damn sake."  
  
"Geez," Steve says, hurt. His hand goes still on the metal arm. It twitches a little when he gives it a squeeze. Bucky is frowning now, his eyes closed. He doesn't protest when Steve drapes an arm around him, pulls him close, and buries his face in Bucky's hair. They rarely slept wrapped around each other as kids, but it happened sometimes. Sometimes for no reason at all, sometimes because it was drafty and the body heat felt good, once because Steve's father died. Bucky's hair smells a little vomit-laced, but otherwise his scent is clean and not quite familiar. Tinged with familiarity, though. He slides the metal arm around Steve's back and holds him tight, almost like a threat. "You need a hair cut," Steve says, muttering this against the top of Bucky's head.  
  
"No," Bucky says.  
  
"No?"  
  
"Leave the hair. The hair stays."  
  
"Oh, really? Earlier you said I could shave you bald."  
  
Bucky just grunts. His hair is in his face now, covering it as he burrows in a little, pressing against Steve's collarbone. Steve moves his hand to sweep it back, then stops himself. It's kind of like a shield, and he's not going to take any of Bucky's armor away, even if he still holds an old-fashioned notion that long hair on men is strictly for those employed by the circus.  
  
*  
  
Over the next few days they establish a routine. Steve wakes up and exits the bed as quietly as possible, leaving Bucky fast asleep. He goes down to the corner store where he's been spending his savings little by little. He tries to be as economical as possible, buying only bagels, pastries, bananas, and the day's  _Times_  and _Post_. The television makes Bucky twitchy and uncomfortable for the most part, but he can deal with the papers and spends most of his day reading both from cover to cover.  
  
His illness doesn't seem to be getting worse, but he's still listless and determined that he's dying. When Dr. Banner shows up, Steve can't thank him effusively enough. Banner glances around the apartment warily, setting his doctor's bag on the dining room table.  
  
"Where is he?" Banner asks. He looks nervous, but when they last spent time together Steve noticed that's almost always true, at least until he transitions into pure rage.  
  
"In the bedroom," Steve says. He's not sure how cooperative Bucky will be with this doctor visit. Bucky has spent the past two days sleeping, reading, and lying around wearing Steve's sweatpants. He's shown some resistance to eating and bathing, but Steve has been able to coax him into doing both. Remarks from Steve that aren't direct orders are met with a disinterested grunt. "Can I get you something?" Steve asks, hovering while Banner opens his bag. "Coffee? I've got some danishes, they're from the store downstairs, they're okay--"  
  
"I'm fine," Banner says. "I'd rather just get to it, if you don't mind."  
  
"Okay, sure, absolutely. I'll get him."  
  
"You know I'm a physicist, right?" Banner calls as Steve heads toward the bedroom. "Not, uh. A medical doctor."  
  
"I know, but Natasha said--"  
  
"I'm curious about this but I doubt I can help."  
  
"Well, I appreciate you coming, um--" Steve looks into the bedroom. Bucky is on the bed, wearing the sweatpants and no shirt, pretending to sleep. Steve still hasn't been able to call him 'Barnes,' so he doesn't call out, just goes to side of the bed and squats down to look Bucky in the eye. "I know you're awake," Steve says. "There's a guy out there who came a long way to see you. He wants to help."  
  
"Don't talk to me like I'm a child. He can't do anything for me unless he has Hydra's serum, and I don't want it if he does."  
  
"Buck -- just get up. Humor me. And put on a shirt."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because we've got company. He's a very renowned scientist, okay? A genius."  
  
"I don't have the highest regard for scientists these days."  
  
"He's not like the ones you've met, I promise. He's a good guy, one of us."  
  
"Us." Bucky scoffs and sits up. When Steve hands him a clean T-shirt, he puts it on and stands to follow Steve out of the room.  
  
"Okay," Banner says when Bucky emerges. He's looking at the arm, nodding to himself. "Okay, hello."  
  
"Where do you need me?" Bucky asks, muttering.  
  
"Bucky," Steve says, placing a hand on his back. "This is Dr. Banner. Dr. Banner, this is my friend, um. This is -- Mr. Barnes."  
  
Banner laughs a little at that, then just looks confused.  
  
"Can Steve not be here for this?" Bucky asks.  
  
"Hey, now," Steve says. "Don't--"  
  
"I'm just going to do a routine physical," Banner says, pulling a stethoscope from his bag. "You could go for a walk or something."  
  
"I won't kill him," Bucky says when Steve looks at him uncertainly.  
  
"Good to know that upfront," Banner says.  
  
Steve feels like he's been kicked out of his own place, and he doesn't like it. Outside it's hot, a bright summer afternoon, and he has to think for a second about which day of the week it is. Tuesday. Kids are riding their bikes on the sidewalks near his apartment, out of school for the season. A couple of them spot him, stop riding and stare. He waves and smiles, gets more awestruck stares in return.  
  
He checks his watch five times before deciding that twenty minutes is plenty of time to be away. The outdoors is making him feel exposed recently, and he recognizes that's a bad sign but isn't sure what he's supposed to do about it. He hurries back up to the apartment and is startled when he finds Banner alone in the dining area, packing up his bag.  
  
"Where's--"  
  
"He went in there," Banner says, pointing to the bedroom. "Not the friendliest guy."  
  
"Sorry. He's--"  
  
"No, I know. Natasha explained."  
  
"Is he going to be okay?"  
  
"He's fine, as far as I can tell. I took a blood sample, so I'll let you know what I find. Heart, lungs, all that seems normal. I think he's got a couple of cracked ribs, though."  
  
"So he's not-- He doesn't seem like he's dying?" Steve asks, lowering his voice.   
  
"No. The arm's interesting. Strange technology. I mentioned psychiatric care and he told me he's a lost cause, so that's something you might want to look into."  
  
"Yeah, I know. Getting him to entertain the idea is another story."  
  
"Is there, um, some reason you're taking all this on yourself? As opposed to having him get care from real MDs and so on?"  
  
"He's. I'm afraid they'd lock him up."  
  
"Understandable. But take it from someone whose gone rogue after a bad experience -- it's not always the best solution."  
  
"He's not rogue. He's with me."  
  
"Right, but aren't you accustomed to having like--" Banner makes a hand gesture that means nothing to Steve. "An army, or a team, or whatever? Some leadership to follow?"  
  
"Yeah. What are you getting at, Doc?"  
  
"Don't take this the wrong way, Steve, but this is kind of like the blind leading the blind here, isn't it? You and him holed up in an apartment together? Natasha is concerned."  
  
"I'm doing the best I can," Steve says. "If Bucky needs more care, or different care, I'll get it for him. But for now he needs me. No one seems to want to give me credit for figuring that out, but I'm right. You'll see."  
  
"Okay, sure." Banner gives Steve's arm a cautious pat. "I'm heading back to the west coast, working on something with Stark. He wanted to come, you know. To see the Soldier for himself."  
  
"He's not a sideshow," Steve says, annoyed by the thought of Stark gawking, poking at Bucky, making smart-aleck comments.  
  
"I know,” Banner says. “That's why I told Stark to stay put. Anyway, um. I'll let you know if anything strange comes up with the blood work, but I think your friend is okay. Physically, I mean. Mentally, you've got a lot on your plate there. Good intentions only go so far."  
  
"I appreciate the input," Steve says, ready for Banner to leave now.  
  
When he has, Steve checks on Bucky. He's sleeping, or pretending to. Steve checks his phone next, and is glad to see a text message from Natasha.  
  
 _sam says he's been cooking dinner for you and ws. find this funny  
  
Funny how?  
  
amusing. interesting. very odd.  
  
Banner was just here. Looks like you might be right about the injections being a trick to keep him scared  
  
am always right, but thanks for confirming_  
  
Steve smiles down at his phone before putting it away. He wishes she had come with Banner, but not everybody's schedule is as open as his is these days. He goes into the kitchen, mixes up a chocolate milk, and brings it into the bedroom, where Bucky is still slumped in bed. After a couple of seconds of watching his agitated breathing, Steve knows he's awake.  
  
"Can't just stay in bed all day," Steve says, though he's honestly not sure what he should allow Bucky to do: design the parameters of his own recovery or keep slavishly following Steve's directives? He sits on the bed and fights the urge to brush Bucky's hair out of his face. Instead, he pokes Bucky's shoulder and offers the glass of chocolate milk. "Have some of this," he says when Bucky peeks out through his hair. "You used to always -- Bucky, I mean. This used to perk him up when he was feeling down, when we were kids."  
  
"That quack doesn't know what he's talking about," Bucky says. He sits up, his shoulders curled toward his chest and his eyelids heavy. He looks so defeated that Steve flinches toward him, wanting to wrap around him like makeshift armor. He offers the milk again, and Bucky just stares at it.  
  
"He knows what he's talking about," Steve says, keeping his tone soft. "And he says you're gonna be just fine."  
  
"Get that out of here," Bucky says, staring at the milk. "I don't want a cure."  
  
"Buck -- Barnes, I mean--"  
  
"And stop trying to pretend you can think of me as anyone but him. Call me whatever you want. It doesn't matter." Bucky meets Steve's eyes, not even trying to hide how broken he is by Banner's good news. He's shaking; Steve can feel the mattress trembling under him. "Dying was all I had left.”  
  
"What about me?" Steve is still holding the milk out toward him. He can't make himself give up on getting Bucky to drink it, as if it means anything, or everything. Everything he tries feels like patching a dam break with a band-aid, but he can't hand Bucky over to a team of doctors. Nobody's got an advanced degree in him the way Steve does.  
  
"You're like my prisoner," Bucky says. "I've turned this place into your cell."  
  
"No. Bucky. Drink the damn chocolate milk, all right?"  
  
Bucky takes the glass, and for a moment Steve is sure he's going to pitch it against the wall. He's still breathing in hard, measured exhalations, as if he's struggling to keep himself calm. He takes a sip of the milk, licks his lips, and drinks more.  
  
"What was it like when you came back to life?" Bucky asks when half the milk is gone, Steve's hand resting cautiously on Bucky's thigh. "Parades?" he says before Steve can answer, his eyes narrowing. "Streamers, medals, balloons?"  
  
"It was lonely as all hell. Still is, most days. But in bed, at night. With you. That's so much better." They've been holding each other. Once the lights are off, Bucky lets Steve gather him in close, and when he thinks Steve is asleep, he clings hard.  
  
"If you give me a mission," Bucky says, his voice getting reedy. He gulps from the milk and starts again. "Anything. I'll do it. I need something to do."  
  
"I know the feeling. How about this -- let me show you how to live in this world, this time. Maybe that'll help me figure it out myself."  
  
"I don't deserve it."  
  
"What?"  
  
"To live. Here or anyplace else."  
  
"Bucky, it wasn't--"  
  
"I could have fought them harder, Steve. I could have been stronger. You would have been."  
  
Steve shakes his head. He thinks of the file on the Winter Soldier, the methods they used to make Bucky their slave. He's been having nightmares about it, and he didn't have to live it.  
  
"Nobody has to answer for what happened but Hydra."  
  
"That's damn easy for you to say!" Bucky says, suddenly livid, but it drains out of him quickly, and he grabs for Steve's hand when it slides off his thigh. Bucky's metal hand closes around Steve's, gentle. "I don't deserve forgiveness," he says. "Stop forgiving me all the time. Every time you look at me. It's like a knife in my heart."  
  
"I can't help it, Buck."  
  
"Then maybe I shouldn't be around you."  
  
Steve takes the empty glass from him and sets it the bedside table. His limbs feel newly heavy, and there's a lump in his throat that he can't swallow down. He moves toward Bucky without meeting his eyes and puts his arms around him. Bucky huffs as if this hug is preposterous, but he doesn't fight free, just slumps against Steve, still breathing hard.  
  
"Please don't go," Steve says, the lump straining his voice. "That's your mission, if you want one from me. Stay here and fight it out with me. Not saying it's gonna be easy, but just stay. Will you stay? I know you hate the sight of my face, I know I'm a fool with my stupid milk and--"  
  
"Stop," Bucky says, his voice muffled against Steve's shoulder. The metal arm snakes around Steve's back, and Bucky lets out a choppy breath. "You're a lighthouse. Problem is, I'm not a ship. I'm the rocks the ships might crash on. Get it?"  
  
"Not really," Steve says, and Bucky actually laughs a little, his grip on Steve tightening.  
  
They sink down to the bed and just lie there for a while. Steve watches the window over the top of Bucky's head, tracking the changing light. Bucky drifts off in his arms, fidgets awake, drifts off again. Sam will bring dinner later. Afterward, Bucky will watch Steve do a crossword puzzle. He'll put the dirty plates in the dishwasher after Steve has rinsed them off. That's one of his jobs. Steve starts to fall asleep, thinking this way about the evening to come and trying not to dwell on what Banner said about good intentions. Bucky smells good, like chocolate milk, and a little bit like a wooden popsicle stick, which was how he always used to smell.  
  
Steve sleeps thinly and wakes up when the sun is going down. He's not accustomed to so much rest, and it's making him feel vaguely ill, like he's come down with a self-induced flu. He sits up and stretches, sensing that Bucky is awake, too, though he's heavy and motionless at Steve's side.  
  
"I tried to stay away from you," Bucky says, mumbling this when Steve moves to exit the bed. "Couldn't."  
  
"You talking in your sleep?" Steve asks, though he knows he's not. He brushes Bucky's hair back just a little, off his cheek. Bucky shrugs.  
  
"Sleeping and waking up haven't felt that different for a while. Hard to say which is which, sometimes."  
  
An hour later, Sam shows up with dinner: pork chops, sweet potatoes, cole-slaw. Any day now, Steve is going to tell Sam that he doesn't have to keep sacrificing his evenings and his money for Steve's dinner, but he doesn't feel ready to lose what feels like his last lifeline to the rest of the world, so tonight he just helps with the cooking, peeling potatoes. Bucky is still in the bedroom, still flattened to the bed by the news that he's going to live.  
  
"I think we had a breakthrough," Steve says, whispering this. Sam sighs.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"We were talking, really talking. He wasn't just barking at me and pretending to be a stranger."  
  
"Well, hey. Good for him. Is he gonna join us for dinner?"  
  
"Can't say. Don't want to push him, you know?"  
  
"Mhmm."  
  
Steve catches the judgment in Sam's tone but lets it slide. Nobody on the outside is going to understand, not yet. Steve can do this. He can be the leader Bucky needs.  
  
"You've been talking to Natasha," Steve says, to change the subject. "She was teasing me about how you're cooking my meals."  
  
"She's a trip," Sam says. "Good to talk to."  
  
"Yeah, huh. She coming to town anytime soon?"  
  
"I don't know, Cap, she didn't give me her itinerary."  
  
Bucky emerges when the chops are cooking in the pan. He's still wearing his shirt, which is good. There's something very uncomfortable about eating with Sam when Bucky is half naked. He looks bleary and does his usual routine of standing near the breakfast bar like he's lost in a subway tunnel and isn't sure which turn to take.  
  
"Shoot," Steve says from the fridge. "Out of milk." There's a little left in the half gallon, but not enough for a full glass.  
  
"I'll take a beer," Bucky says.  
  
"I know you will," Steve mutters, not comfortable with medicating him this way, though the beers don't seem to do anything but placate him. He grabs one of the two remaining beers and tries not to be irritated by the way Sam watches him as he opens it and passes it to Bucky. It's not like Steve is passing Bucky a handle of whiskey, and if Sam doesn't think he should drink beer he shouldn't bring any over with the rest of the groceries.  
  
"Been to see Peggy lately?" Sam asks when they're at the table, eating in silence that feels heavier than it has for the past few days. Steve looks up from his plate, then over at Bucky, who has frozen with his knife and fork stuck in the chop.  
  
"Peggy's alive?" he says, turning to Steve.  
  
"She's -- yeah. Her daughter says seeing me confuses her, so, but. I should stop by again soon."  
  
"Sorry, Cap," Sam says. "I didn't know she'd been -- confused."  
  
"It's. Yeah."  
  
"Why is she confused?" Bucky asks.  
  
"Just. Old age, you know."  
  
"Oh. Could I see her?"  
  
Steve looks at Sam, who seems as alarmed as he is by this question. Bucky seems serious, waiting for an answer.  
  
"No -- Buck, no, why? Why would you--"  
  
"Never mind." Bucky saws at his pork chop.  
  
"Why do you ask, though?"  
  
"She's something from back then," Bucky says, keeping his eyes on his plate. "Someone, I mean. But I guess she's an old woman now."  
  
"She's in her nineties," Steve says. "Like us, but. Yeah."  
  
The rest of the dinner is awkward, and Steve knows he's going to hear about it from Sam when he walks him out. He sneaks the last beer out with them and hands it to Sam when they're at the top of the stairs.  
  
"He doesn't need this," Steve says. "Maybe, in the future--"  
  
"Cap, how long are we going to do this?" Sam asks. "I'm glad to help, but I feel like neither of us is making a dent."  
  
"We are, though, trust me--"  
  
"I'm sorry for bringing up Peggy. That was weird, right? Him saying he wants to see her?"  
  
"Not really. Like he said, he knew her. He's trying to get his bearings, and she's someone from back when he had them."  
  
"I don't think it's a good idea."  
  
"Of course it's not. I'm not going to bring him to the old folk's home, good lord. I'm not going to bring him anywhere."  
  
"Until when? He's going to spend a year in your apartment? What sort of milestone is he gonna reach that means he's okay to go out in public?"  
  
"Sam, look--"  
  
"I've been looking, Steve, and I don't like what I see. I told Natasha to hang back, that I'd keep an eye on things and see how they're developing, but all I've seen is you going further and further down the rabbit hole he's in. You don't even leave your apartment."  
  
"Where am I going to go?" Steve asks, his defenses going up, though he doesn't want to get mad at Sam. "I'm in stasis, too, until I hear from Fury."  
  
"And then what? Going to bring ex-Hydra who's been brainwashed to kingdom come and back along on Fury's next mission for you? Think he'd even let that happen?"  
  
"That's not the only option! Bucky could stay here, or--"  
  
"Stay here and do what? Mope around in your sweatpants? He's depressed, and that's the least of his problems. Look." Sam holds up his hands, the unopened beer clasped in one of them. "I'm not trying to pick a fight. I get where you're coming from, I do. But you're in this pretty deep, and you can't fix people. They have to want to help themselves."  
  
"He does -- he will. He's trying."  
  
"I'm gonna go. I'll call you tomorrow. Just think about it, okay? Think about the future before it's right on top of both of you and there's no place left to hide."  
  
Steve wants to explain that this has already happened, that the future is heavy on top of him and Bucky and that without SHIELD and Hydra it feels like there's no place for them in it beyond the quiet of Steve's apartment, but Sam is walking down the stairs and Steve doesn't want to start shouting things at him, worked up as he is. He knows Sam is right, Banner is right, Natasha is right, but they're all wrong, too, because they can't see the third dimension of this thing from where they're sitting. It's just two sides to them: disaster and solution. Steve is in the place between, navigating it as best he can, and he's not going to lose hold of Bucky's hand until they find the other side.  
  
The trouble is that he's aware that the other side could be disaster just as easily as solution. He goes inside feeling beat up and restless, trying to imagine bringing Bucky out in the world someday, and what exactly he'd have to do, feel or say before that happened. When he goes inside, Bucky is at the fridge, frowning.  
  
"I thought there was another beer?" he says.  
  
"Nope." Steve gets the dirty plates from the table and brings them to the sink. He feels Bucky staring at him and doesn't know what to say.  
  
"Sorry about Peggy," Bucky says. "I know you loved her. Love her."  
  
"I did. I do. Thanks."  
  
They go to bed early, though they both spent most of the day there. Steve is acutely aware that there's no place else for them to go, and he's beginning to feel claustrophobic when Bucky rolls over, takes Steve's hand and brings it to his cock. He's hard inside the sweatpants, warm through the cloth. Steve swallows the excess moisture in his mouth and keeps his eyes locked on Bucky's.  
  
"How's it that you both liked women and he still looked forward to getting you in his lap so much?" Bucky asks.  
  
So they're back to talking about Bucky in the third person now. Okay.  
  
"Um," Steve says. "You can like both. That's a thing. It's accepted now. By most -- by some people."  
  
"Both. Seems greedy."  
  
"It's not greedy. It's just how some folks are. Like us, I suppose."  
  
"You and Bucky?"  
  
"Me and – yeah. I thought, earlier." Steve pauses, trying to figure out how to ask politely if there's more than one person living in Bucky's body right now.  
  
"Your friend scares him off," Bucky says, and Steve gets a chill. The warmth has gone out of Bucky's voice, and his eyes are flat now, shielded.  
  
"My friend -- Sam?"  
  
"I know I said your Bucky was dead. Maybe it's more like I'm trying to kill him."  
  
"Please don't," Steve says. He can't remember ever having been this terrified before, with the possible exception of watching Bucky fall to his death, and it occurs to him with alarm that he's still got his hand cupped around Bucky's -- somebody's -- erection.  
  
"It'd be a mercy kill," Bucky says, moving his face closer to Steve's. "He's so bullet-riddled he can't even stand up on his own. I did think he was dead, once, but the raggedly little thing has started twitching again since I hooked up with you."  
  
"Bucky," Steve says, pleading. He tries to look into Bucky's eyes deeply enough to scoop him out, wants to rescue him from whatever else is going on in there. He should really take his hand off Bucky's cock, but it feels like that would be dangerous, a pin pulled from a grenade.  
  
"Don't do that," Bucky says when Steve presses his face closer, searching Bucky's eyes. "He doesn't come out without my permission."  
  
"If you keep talking like this I'm gonna have to get you some help. Real help."  
  
"Want to strap me to another chair, call in a new team of scientists to poke and prod and undo what the other ones did? You know I'd be gone in a heartbeat, and I'd take him with me."  
  
"Him. Bucky."  
  
"Yes, your Bucky. He's heavy, you know. I get tired of carrying him around."  
  
"God," Steve says, flattened by that. He opens his mouth to volunteer to carry Bucky himself, but there's no sane way to voice that and he just ends up making a kind of sad, croaking sound.  
  
When Bucky moans it sounds almost sympathetic, though also like he's aroused by Steve's growing panic. He surges forward to cover Steve's mouth with his own, licking his lips apart and pressing against his hand, very hard now. Steve's cock is halfway there, his mind whirling in confusion that the heat of Bucky's tongue filling his mouth only intensifies.  
  
"If you're not him," Steve says, because he can't believe that this attempt at distinction is not just another shield, hopefully a conscious one. "Then why--" He kisses Bucky because he can't articulate it: why are they kissing, why does it feel so real, scarier than it was back then but still amazing enough to make Steve feel like that asthmatic kid again, unable to catch his breath or distinguish the earth from the sky when Bucky smiles against his lips. But it's not Bucky's smile; his eyes are still cold.  
  
"I liked fighting you," Bucky says. "You were good at it, better than any of my other targets. We're like counterpoints, light and dark."  
  
"So?"  
  
"So I know what it's like to be fucked. You could. I think it would be good, with you."  
  
"You -- Who? When?"  
  
"Hydra, one of the scientists. My handler. He was a queer and I was following orders."  
  
This cuts through Steve's confusion like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head, and he pulls away from Bucky, nausea overtaking him so fast that he's afraid he's going to have to run for the toilet and be sick. He scoots to the edge of the mattress and sits there shaking, his back to Bucky. It's too much. This wasn't in the file.  
  
"He made you," Steve says, and then he loses his voice.  
  
"Look, hey," Bucky says, walking toward Steve on his knees. He touches the back of Steve's neck with his human hand, rubbing it a little. "It's not the worst thing they made me do. Or the most humiliating. Sometimes it felt good. He's dead, if that makes you feel better."  
  
"Don't say it like that," Steve mutters, putting his hand over his eyes, his elbow on his knee.  
  
"Say -- what? No, he's really dead, literally. Got crushed under a beam twenty years ago, when our base was attacked just outside of Sarajevo. Or maybe it was thirty years ago, hard to say from my perspective, but anyway it's been a long time since I was--"  
  
"I meant the way you said 'queer'," Steve says when his voice mostly works again. "We don't say it like that anymore."  
  
"We?"  
  
"People. I can't--" Steve gets up and walks out of the room. He paces, not sure where he's going. He could leave, go for a run, could run all night and maybe he'd be able to think straight by sunrise, but he doesn't want to leave Bucky alone with himself, or the Soldier, or with that casual reference to a whole new stratum of abuse. When he gathers himself enough to turn and face the bedroom, Bucky is leaning in the doorway looking concerned, almost guilty. He's still hard, tenting the sweatpants in a way that would be comical if Steve hadn't just had his heart ripped out.  
  
"Look, forget it," Bucky says. "We can stick to hand jobs. Or nothing. You're real pale all of a sudden -- you need to put your head between your knees or something?"  
  
Steve walks to Bucky in three fast strides, sucking in his breath as he goes. Bucky's eyes widen and he seems to brace himself to be struck, but he doesn't try to fend Steve off when he grabs Bucky's face and tilts it up toward his, staring down into his eyes.  
  
"No one hurts you again," Steve says, stroking his thumbs across Bucky's cheeks once, twice. "I know they left you in pieces. I'm so sorry, Buck. I won't let anybody lay their hands on you again, not unless you ask for their help. Nobody's putting you back in a cage. Nobody, ever, least of all me. You're with me now. You're with me, aren't you?"  
  
"I'm with you," Bucky says, looking transfixed. "Till the--" There's a glimpse behind the Soldier's shield, just a blink, and Steve wants to kiss him while he's still letting himself be Bucky, but it's gone just as fast and the Soldier smiles. "You're my counterpoint," he says. "Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere, as long as it's just me and you."  
  
 _As long as it's just me and you._  Those words haunt Steve as he returns to bed, nowhere near able to sleep. It's like they're in purgatory together, and the scariest part is that he can't think of anyplace he'd rather be. He shakes his head when Bucky slides against him and rubs his dick on Steve's leg.  
  
"I can't right now," Steve says, and he wants to rephrase that, because it implies that he will want to touch Bucky there later, which is true but not right, not if there's any shred of truth to what he's said about this body housing two different 'people.' Bucky sits up on his elbow and pushes his hair off his face.  
  
"That's okay," he says. "You want me to go into the bathroom?"  
  
"The bathroom?"  
  
"Otherwise I'll just take care of it right here."  
  
"Bucky. I'm not just going to lie here and watch you."  
  
"You could. Sorry I said that about my handler. I didn't mean to ruin the mood."  
  
"I'm glad you told me." This isn't entirely true, but he's at least glad that Bucky feels he can trust him with things like this, whether he says them as his flippant body double or not. "You can talk about anything you want me with me, anything you need to say."  
  
"All right. Uh, listen. I liked it last time, when you were there, after."  
  
"After?"  
  
"After I went off, you know, in the bathroom, when you were whistling? It sort of shakes me up, and you were there, and. But if you want me to get lost with this pup tent, I will."  
  
Steve thinks about that time in the bathroom, his hand on Bucky's cock, how hot and hard it was against his palm, too real to even look at directly. He groans and turns off the lamp on the bedside table. He should send Bucky away, but he's asking Steve to hold him after he comes, to let him shiver and slump into Steve's arms like he did that day, and Steve can't refuse him that comfort, or maybe he's just unwilling to deny himself the chance to be there when Bucky needs him.  
  
Bucky scoots over, into the crook of Steve's arm. Steve tries staring at the ceiling, but as soon as his eyes adjust he takes a peek. Bucky has pushed the sweatpants down just a little bit, the elastic waistband sung under his balls. The sight of his naked cock, right there, so close, makes Steve's eyes shoot back to the ceiling, his whole body flushing.  
  
"Do you want lotion?" Steve asks, trying to be a good host. Bucky snorts.  
  
"I'm fine without it. I'm close."  
  
"You -- yeah?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Why -- why's that?"  
  
"You smell good." Bucky shrugs when Steve glances over at him incredulously. "I'm like a teenager again, everything's a hair trigger."  
  
Steve puts his arm around Bucky and stares at the ceiling while he touches himself. Bucky is quiet, only breathing a bit harder, mostly through his nose. When he spreads his legs Steve glances down, and his own dick starts to rise as Bucky goes off with a whine, tensing against Steve's side and spraying all over both their T-shirts. He pants through it, his head thrown back, and Steve stares at his bared neck, dizzy and wanting things that are entirely inappropriate, because the real Bucky is buried somewhere deep in the body next to his. It seems like he's risen close to the surface when Bucky moans softly and rolls against Steve, his face pressed to Steve's neck, the metal hand skimming down to the waistband of Steve's underwear.  
  
“You want--?” Bucky says, muttering, his hips twitching with invitation.   
  
“No -- I couldn't. Wouldn't be able to, not now.”   
  
“Sorry.”   
  
“God, no, don't -- it's not your fault. None of it.”   
  
Bucky sighs with what sounds like tired disagreement. He slides his arm across Steve's chest, and he's got to know that Steve is still awake, lying on his back, half-hard and staring at the ceiling, but he clings anyway, squishing the mess of his orgasm between the fabric of their T-shirts. Steve holds him, breathes, and tries not to think too hard about anything except what to do next, which is the one thing he can't seem to settle his mind on.  
  
*  
  
Steve wakes up alone and feels robbed, as if someone has taken his shield. He's quickly on his feet and aware of a sound coming from outside the bedroom, in the kitchen. It's a kind of sharp banging noise, and he forces himself not to run, because he knows that it's Bucky and he's still afraid that any wrong move might send him out into the rain again, into the alley, out of sight.   
  
Bucky is opening and closing cabinets, looking for something. Steve assesses the situation and hangs back for a moment, wondering if Bucky heard his footsteps on the way in.   
  
“Can I help?” Steve asks, lingering outside the kitchen. Bucky whirls on him, his eyes wild and his breath coming fast. It strikes Steve like a bullet to the chest: this is a Bucky he hasn't seen before, but also someone he recognizes in a way that he hasn't since before he met the Winter Soldier.   
  
“He'll kill you,” Bucky says. His hands are shaking; it's visible from ten feet off. “He might have -- might have hidden weapons here, he was in this room when he was bleeding, he was here to kill you--”  
  
“Who?” Steve takes two steps forward, slowly. “Who was here?”  
  
“The Soldier. He's still here, Steve, he's here!” Bucky points to himself, jabbing his finger at his chest, his breath coming harder. “He's in me, and I'm letting him have you, I'm letting him stay.”   
  
Bucky crumbles to the floor like the room has started shaking, too, knocking him off balance. There's something violent about it that makes Steve hesitate for half a second situation before swooping in to support him. When he does, Bucky fights his grip like he knows that he won't be able to get free, and Steve holds on as if he fully believes that Bucky doesn't want him to give up.  
  
“He's here!” Bucky shouts, jerking in Steve's arms. “And I let him in. I've got -- it's got to be destroyed, Steve, the system, it can't function here, it can't forget wanting to kill you--”  
  
“Okay,” Steve says, his heart thundering when he hears Bucky vacillate between referring to his corrupted self as 'he' and 'it.' “Okay, Buck, I hear you. I feel that, too, that uncertainty that they put in you, in us--”  
  
“You don't,” Bucky says. “You're not in here. You don't know him, he's a liar, he's lied to you already, he laughs at us--”  
  
“It's just the memories,” Steve says, though he's not sure he's right. “It's them, the people who hurt you. They wanted to hurt me, too, and they tried to make you do their dirty work. They didn't pull it off, though. They couldn't make you hurt me. No one could. Do you think I'd have you here if I didn't know that? Do you think I can't feel it, right now, that you want to keep me safe? Buck, you're shaking real hard.”  
  
“I—,” Bucky says, and he seems to shudder harder, in an almost inhuman way that makes Steve mindful of the metal arm and what it might do. He loosens his grip slightly, waiting to see which Bucky will emerge from the heap of miscellaneous parts that he's trying to keep securely in his arms. “That's – I--”  
  
Bucky turns to look up at Steve, his hair slashed across his face. It's as if Steve is seeing Bucky through a grate, the suggestion of his friend blocked by bars that separate them. Steve is breathing hard, too, wishing he could trust himself to say this out loud without sounding like he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, the barest scrap of the hell Bucky has been through.   
  
“You're worried,” Bucky says, his eyes locked on Steve's and his voice firming up. “You'll be alone if he's gone.”   
  
Steve lets out his breath and puts his face against Bucky's cheek, though he knows that the 'he' the Soldier is talking about is the Bucky he's afraid to lose, the half of him that just retreated.   
  
“I've been alone since I lost him,” Steve says. Bucky huffs, but Steve can hear him trying to make it sound flippant, wanting to seem as if he's cast the wounded parts of himself off again, as if it's that easy.  
  
“Maybe that's what me and you have in common,” Bucky says, mumbling. “And he can't relate, because he was never a lonely motherfucker like me and you are. Like what they made us into. Things that don't belong anywhere. One reviled, the other revered. Both just as fucking alone as the other.”   
  
“You're wrong about Bucky,” Steve says. He puts his hand in Bucky's hair, closes his fingers into it in a way that he never would have done back then, or yesterday, or any time before he heard this confession and allowed himself to accept that two people are making it. “He was lonely, too. We were. Before each other. Without each other. Don't underestimate him. His strength kept you alive. Do you know that? Do you know him well enough to understand that he's fighting for you?”  
  
“Fighting? He just -- he thinks I'll kill you.” Bucky is mumbling this into Steve's shoulder, tremoring.   
  
“I know Bucky. He saved my life after years of being conditioned to kill me. He still saved me, he couldn't do anything else. If he thought you were going to kill me? He'd have you far away from here.”  
  
“He--” Bucky shakes his head hard, and for a moment Steve worries he's malfunctioned in some essential way, like a machine that's thrown a gear. He presses his face to Bucky's neck, breathes in the smell of his skin. “There's no he,” Bucky says, and it sounds like the words hurt, grinding out hard. “There's me, and there's your friend. But there's no 'he' anymore, singular. The one who saved you. There's just -- this confused -- a kind of -- mist, between them. And I'm him, and I'm not, and--”  
  
“Okay,” Steve says when he trails off there. “That's okay.”  
  
“It's not.”  
  
“I know. What happened to you, it's not okay, but here you're okay. You're okay here. I'm here for you -- both of you. And you can tell me it's because I'm lonely, and maybe you're right, but I'm not going anywhere. Are you? Going anywhere? 'Cause I can't wake up and not have you here. Either of you. Could you believe I love you both?”  
  
Steve didn't mean to say that, but once he has he knows it's true.   
  
Bucky deflates, his forehead resting against the floor, and Steve still all around them. Their breathing steadies and Steve feels like he remembers what it was like to be defrosted, to emerge from the ice: it's a sense memory that's been lost to him since the fuzzy reemergence of consciousness, but this must have been what his body experienced, the impossible surge of warmth that he wants to trust so badly.   
  
“Steve,” Bucky says, and he still sounds like the soldier, but he feels like Bucky, soft and tired. “I'd believe, you. Yeah, you could love anyone. You could love him. Me. That -- it. Anything. I was shooting you. And I still saw you. I saw someone who wanted me to be someone else.”  
  
“No,” Steve says. “I didn't want that. I saw you, I knew you. I wanted you to understand what I saw. I wanted you to want to see it, too.”   
  
Bucky pushes Steve away and puts his hands over his face, still on the floor. Steve sits back, waits. He can feel that warmth growing, the ice thawing. He knows it's not as easy as the temperature change.  
  
“I should eat,” Bucky says, staring at the floor. “I mean. He should. The wibbling one. He's hungry.”  
  
“Sure, yeah.” Steve stands, thinking of mac and cheese, peanut butter and jelly. The things they ate together as children, before Bucky learned that comfort food was weakness. Steve isn't sure he can remind him that's not true, but it seems like Bucky has a system in place to combat what they've done to him already. He can blame his hunger on the weak one, his anger on the killer. Neither of them has to be him, yet. Steve puts his hand out and they hold each other's gaze for a long time, but in every second, waiting, Steve knows that Bucky will reach for him when he's ready.  
  
Bucky won't meet Steve's eyes when he takes his hand, but he lets Steve hold on. Steve brings him to the fridge, gets the milk, pours two glasses. Bucky stays close and frowns slightly, sighs a few times. He's between lives, and Steve is, too. Maybe they always will be, and maybe the ice is still thawing. Steve feels warm, anyway, when Bucky finishes his milk and lets Steve gather him in, stroke his back, trace the long line of his spine. Steve touches the arm, too, both of them breathing a little harder when he does. Bucky lifts his arm, curls his fingers into a fist, and they both stare at his hand, wondering what it will become. There's no punch, no grab, just a slow uncurling. Steve takes the metal hand and kisses the pad of each finger, feeling foolish until he looks up into Bucky's face again. There's gratitude in his eyes, and fear, but it's not a fear of what that fist will do. He owns it, and that's what terrifies him: he owns all of what he is, suddenly, and for the first time since Steve saw him plummet away for what he thought was forever.  
  
“It's tough,” Steve says. “Waking up in a new body.”   
  
“A new mind is tough, too,” Bucky says. His eyes narrow, then soften. He takes the milk glass from Steve's hand, brings it to the sink. “What now?” he says, his back to Steve. “What are we supposed to do?”  
  
Steve isn't sure if Bucky means the two of them or the two people in his own mind. He shakes his head and steps forward, his hands finding Bucky's hips.   
  
“We stay here together,” he says. “All of us who woke up from the ice. Everyone who needs to warm up for a while.”  
  
Bucky sighs. Steve kisses his neck, softly at first, then with his mouth open, until Bucky's sigh is very different. It might be the soldier, or the victim who carried his memories and will carry them still. It doesn't matter: Steve will close them both into his arms. He was saved by both, and he doesn't one want part cut away from the other, the new pain and the good memories, the loyal friend and the soldier who knows him the way no one else can. He wants to keep them both, and he thinks that Bucky does, too. They were both with him all the way through hell, and Steve doesn't want Bucky to give up anything else, ever. He won't lose another arm, a single eyelash. Everything that's left of Bucky is sacred: even the metal, the anger, the dirt under his fingernails. Steve is still watching him fall, just out of reach, and from where he's sitting he'll take anything that closes the distance between them.   
  
*  
  
In September a sticky, persisting heat settles over the city and makes the air in Steve's apartment feel stolid no matter what he sets the A/C on or how many windows he opens. He doesn't like leaving windows open, because Bucky tends to gravitate toward them and stare out at the living world miserably. Steve worries that he's thinking about jumping again, maybe not hitting the pavement arm-first this time. Steve asks Bucky how he's feeling once a day, typically around lunchtime. The answers range from irritable grunts to indifferent shrugs, but he doesn't seem to be getting worse, though Steve isn't sure if he should be dreading or hoping for a second breakdown. The breakdowns might be like stepping stones. It's hard to leap from one to the next but necessary to get where they're going. As it is, they're both as heavy and immobile as the lingering summer.   
  
"Listen," Sam says one night after dinner, which was cabbage rolls with a pork filling. Steve didn't really like it but ate most of his to be polite. Bucky scraped out the pork and left the cabbage on the side of his plate. "I have to go out of town," Sam says. They're at the top of the stairs in the hallway, doing their usual post-dinner review, which Bucky pretends not to notice or resent. "For a conference," Sam says, studying Steve's face. "In Milwaukee, for a week."   
  
"Sounds fun,” Steve says, trying not to be too offended by Sam's obvious concern. “Have a great time. We'll be fine.”   
  
"Will you?" Sam gestures to his own clean-shaven face, to indicate the untidiness of Steve's. "What's going on here? You're growing a beard?"  
  
"This is three days' worth. It's no big deal."   
  
"Uh-huh. And how's he doing?"  
  
"Fine, considering that it's only been a few months. There aren't going to be any quick fixes, Sam. Not from me, and not from whatever doctors you're thinking of turning him over to."   
  
"Steve. Calm down. He's not mine to turn over to anybody. I just. How will you get food when I'm gone?"   
  
"Really? You think I can't figure that out?"   
  
"Do you have money?"  
  
"My savings isn't tapped out yet. I can get stuff at the corner store, downstairs."  
  
"So you're going to eat stale bagels and cereal for a week?"  
  
"What's the big deal if we do? What is this? Are we fighting?"  
  
"No." Sam sighs and holds up his hands. "It's not about the bagels. The bagels are a symbol. Stale-ness, man. I get that it's going to take time, but this whole approach is starting to feel stale."   
  
"What would you suggest?" Steve asks, sincerely curious.   
  
"Maybe start taking him outside? Take him down to the corner store with you, at least."   
  
"He's not ready to see people. Civilians. He looks at them and sees victims, past tense." Steve is speaking low now, and carefully. He doesn't really think Bucky eavesdrops on these nightly stairwell reviews, but he might.   
  
"All right, I'm not going through the whole thing again," Sam says. "You're gonna be okay, though? For a week?"  
  
"I'm not the one recovering, Sam. I'm fine. I can take care of him on my own."   
  
There's something sharp about this that Steve wants to retract, but he keeps his expression stoic. Sam nods.  
  
"It could take years," Sam says, softly. "It could take ten years."   
  
"He's family. It's not optional, and it's not a burden."   
  
"Okay, but there's a world out there might need you, too. Sooner or later. I know you well enough to say that you wouldn't be okay on turning your back on everybody else and staying cooped up here."   
  
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."  
  
"Fine." Sam claps Steve's shoulder. "But I've got to say one more thing, as someone who's about to be a guest speaker at a conference on military PTSD. You _are_ recovering, man. You went through some shit, too. Faced your best friend down when he was trying to kill you. Were gonna let him do it, too, 'cause you couldn't hurt him."  
  
"You're worried about me?" Steve's laugh is genuine. "Sam, I'm okay. This is hard, sure, seeing him like this. But I'm not, you know. Traumatized."   
  
"Mhm," Sam says, clearly unconvinced. "It's just that you're hugging the walls of that apartment pretty close yourself."   
  
"Sam--"  
  
"Okay, I know. You've got it under control. I wouldn't be headed off to this conference if I didn't believe that."   
  
They embrace awkwardly before Sam leaves, and Steve returns to the apartment feeling accused and uncomfortable. It's not like he's afraid to leave, or even afraid to leave Bucky here alone. He would just prefer to stay close, keep his eye on Bucky, and there's nobody out there who needs him yet.  
  
Before he can even close the front door behind him he realizes that's bullshit. Plenty of people need somebody, maybe not him specifically, but somebody he could be if he was out there, helping.   
  
"What's the matter?" Bucky asks. He's hunting through the fridge, probably looking for something to supplement that cabbage-wrapped meal.   
  
"Nothing. Sam's going out of town for a while. We'll have to get dinner on our own."   
  
"Good," Bucky says, closing the fridge hard. "Not sure why he's always over here anyway. Are you two sweet on each other or what the hell?"  
  
"No. I told you, he's my friend."   
  
"So am I, and you're pretty familiar with my dick and my tongue these days, like old times."   
  
"It's different," Steve says. "Me and you."   
  
"How come?"  
  
"Because -- Bucky, c'mon! There are different kinds of love."   
  
He didn't meant to say it like that, still flustered by Sam's reminder that the world outside this apartment needs a hero more often than not. He goes into the bedroom and tears off his shirt, unable to remember the last time he felt actual annoyance toward Bucky, and annoyed with himself for choosing the moment when he obliquely said  _I love you_  to express it.   
  
In bed, Steve feels overheated, but he leaves his boxer shorts on. Most nights they roll together and feel each other up, get each other off. It helps them both fall asleep. Twice, Bucky has crawled down Steve's body and used his mouth. Once he tried to seat himself on Steve's dick. Steve stopped him, afraid it would trigger bad memories for Bucky and totally taken off guard by the opportunity to fit their bodies together like that. He's had sex very sparingly, with a few women and one man, and in his fantasies about Bucky he was always the one doing the sitting.  
  
"It's hot," Bucky says when he gets into bed. The room is dark. Steve sighs so that Bucky won't think he's pretending to be asleep. "I'm not used to being hot like this."   
  
"You were cold?" Steve has thought about this; it bothers him. "A lot of the time?"  
  
"A lot of the time it didn't really register. Temperatures. Anything but whether or not I'd killed the target. You were the first thing in years that I noticed beyond that."   
  
Steve moves toward Bucky, wanting him to know that his arms are available to huddle into, despite the heat. Sometimes Bucky lies stiff as a board and stares at the ceiling for hours. Sometimes he gets into bed like he did on cold nights as a kid, gathering himself up against Steve to fight the chill.  
  
"I could get a floor fan," Steve says when Bucky scoots closer, keeping his eyes cast down and letting Steve reach for him. "I could go out tomorrow, get us some things. I could get a loan," he says when he considers his dwindling savings.   
  
"You could sell autographs."   
  
"That seems -- nah, I wouldn't want to charge for that."   
  
"Fuck it, anyway," Bucky mutters, pressing his face to Steve's chest. "It'll be winter soon. This is a dying heat. It's strongest right before it fades out for good."   
  
"Well, not for good." Steve curls his arm around Bucky more tightly, puts his face in Bucky's hair. It needs a wash, and tomorrow they should both shave. "Just until next summer."   
  
Bucky is quiet for a while, but Steve can sense that he's sharply awake, hesitating to speak.   
  
"Feels like the world's gonna end," Bucky says. It's a small thing, pressed to Steve's skin, half-buried there. Bucky doesn't sound worried, just observant.   
  
"That's how it gets before a fever breaks," Steve says. "Before the heat dies off."   
  
Bucky huffs as if this is a naive sentiment, but he lets Steve hold him until the first jerky twitches of his bad dreams come, and he grabs for Steve with both arms when they do. His hands don't go to Steve's throat anymore. Now they scrabble at his back or tremble in angry fists, Bucky's arms tightening around Steve's ribs until it hurts. It's a good hurt, and Steve feels newly useful when it comes, dismissing Sam's valid points about the rest of the world, for now.  
  
*  
  
In the morning Steve goes down to the corner store for supplies. Upstairs, Bucky is still asleep, and Steve wonders if he should wake him tomorrow morning and invite him on the trip downstairs to get their newspapers. Steve is making scrambled eggs, deliberating on whether or not that would be a good move, when somebody knocks on the door.  
  
It's Natasha. She's cut four or five inches from her hair, and she's wearing jeans, boots, and a long-sleeved shirt, her face flushed. She must have just gotten off a plane, having not anticipated the unseasonable heat. She gives Steve an answering smirk when he beams at her.   
  
"Sam told me to take you for a walk," she says.   
  
"What?" Steve sputters. "Like you're dog sitting?"  
  
"Yeah, I think. Are you okay off leash? Or, I guess the better question: is he?" She peers around Steve, into the apartment.   
  
"He's asleep," Steve says, whispering, and she smirks again, eyebrows raising slightly.   
  
"Sam finds this alarming," she says. "I'm still on the fence, but I'm leaning toward 'strangely charming.'"  
  
"Well, I'm glad you're entertained, but this is actually pretty delicate--"  
  
"I've been through this," Natasha says, the mirth dropping out of her eyes in blink. "Almost exactly."  
  
"I know, I'm sorry." Steve steps out into the hallway with her, shutting the door softly behind him. "I know you defected, and that it's a long process--"  
  
"No, Steve. I've been through what you're going through. You."   
  
Steve frowns, then feels bad for not realizing what she was talking about straight off.  
  
"Oh," he says. Clint. "Right, you have."   
  
"Obviously the numbers aren't the same, in terms of years and kills, but this is a thing I have done. So here I am."   
  
"Here you are," Steve says, and then, "Oh, shit," when his smoke alarm starts blaring. His mind goes instantly to Bucky, but he remembers the actual cause as he dashes back into the apartment. "My eggs are burning," he calls to Natasha in explanation.   
  
"Whoa," she says, watching him remove the pan from the heat and wave the smoke away. "You're cooking now?"   
  
"I could always scramble an egg, okay?"   
  
Steve looks up to see Bucky standing naked in the bedroom doorway. He seems as if he's still half asleep, and he clearly hasn't noticed Natasha.  
  
"What's that noise?" he asks, and then he sees her. "Oh," he says. He turns around, showing his ass and shielding his dick. "Should I be concerned?" he asks, frozen like that. The alarm is still going off.  
  
"No," Steve says. "Just a cooking goof-up. Get dressed, please."  
  
Bucky retreats into the bedroom and shuts the door. Natasha is opening windows while Steve stands in the middle of the kitchen with the pan full of burned eggs, overwhelmed by the oddity of everything that is suddenly happening.  
  
"That is amazing," Natasha says when she returns to the kitchen, her eyes wide. "Has Sam not seen him like this? That is way more progress than I'd expected."  
  
"What do you mean?" Steve asks, though he's surprised, too, that waking up to an alarm didn't send Bucky tearing around the apartment like an agitated cat. Maybe he hasn't seen the forest for the trees, progress-wise.   
  
"Cap," Natasha says. "That's not the Winter Soldier. If the Soldier was hanging out naked somewhere, which, he wouldn't be, he'd come out firing if he heard a noise like that. Or throwing something sharp, in the absence of a gun."   
  
"Of course it's not the Soldier," Steve says, whispering. He puts the egg-burned pan in the sink and groans. "It's still more complicated than he just made it seem."   
  
"I'm amazed," Natasha says, still wide-eyed. "I'm completely amazed. You have him-- He feels safe here, clearly. That's no easy trick."  
  
"It hasn't been easy," Steve says, not sure why he wants to debate her positive assessment of the situation. "I'd better check on him," he says, and the alarm finally relents.   
  
"Fine," Natasha says. "And then we're having our walk."  
  
"Okay," Steve says, and he rejects the freshly painted panic he feels when he considers walking further than the corner store. That makes no sense; he's got nothing to fear out there, and Bucky is showing every indication of being fine if left here alone for an hour. He's back in bed when Steve walks into the bedroom, sulking in his sweatpants. "Sorry," Steve says, shutting the door behind him. "I ruined breakfast, and I woke you up."   
  
"Who is she and why is she here."  
  
It doesn't sound like a question, more like a direct order from a superior officer. Steve frowns, then softens when he realizes that he doesn't want Bucky to remember who Natasha is. The guilt associated with the memory might wipe away all the progress she just witnessed.  
  
"She's a colleague," Steve says. "Just in town to catch up. We're gonna go for a walk. You could come, it's. Nice out, not so hot today."  
  
"I'm not going anywhere with her. What the fuck is this?"  
  
He's gone dark, his breath coming fast now. Steve withholds a defeated sigh when he realizes that he might have just demolished the safe space they built here by letting Natasha cannonball into it without warning Bucky first.   
  
"It's nothing sinister," Steve says. "Just my friend."   
  
"I don't like your friends, and I don't like the way they look at me. I've seen that one before, that woman out there. She's not a friendly."   
  
"She wasn't when they had you working for Hydra, but she is now. I promise, Buck. I'll ask her to go if you don't want her here. Me and her, we'll go for our walk."   
  
"So now you're leaving with her? Great. And I just walked out there like a -- they're going to mark me down as an easy capture now. Jesus, and they should. You and your wibbling friend have turned me into a fucking house cat that suns itself in the corner while you fondle each other. Fuck!"  
  
Bucky gets up from the bed and starts pacing, his hands going to his hair. Steve's heart rate picks up, and he can sense Natasha's alarm from out in the apartment, her readiness to assist if things go sideways.   
  
"She's not here to capture you," Steve says, slowly. "Nobody's--"  
  
"You don't know what you're talking about half the time! He's got you sex crazed, just like back then. You're having a mental asthma attack, you're short of oxygen, it's making you dim."  
  
"Hey," Steve says, sharply enough to get him to stop pacing. The Soldier only responds to firm orders; he might sneer at them, but he craves them like the real Bucky craves food, water, Steve. "Stop it. Sit down. There's no reason to get worked up." Steve has to count this as progress, too: the Soldier doesn't want to die anymore, or be captured. He wants to stay here, in the warm window of light cast by Bucky and Steve, though he won't admit it.  
  
"You think you'll be able to keep your bedmate if they take me away?" Bucky scoffs. "I go where this body goes. Maybe I get quiet sometimes, because you're piss poor company and I got nothing to say, but I'm still here, and I'm starting to think I can protect him better than you can."  
  
"Fine," Steve says, exhausted. "But I know Bucky wants to stay here, with me, so it looks like you're stuck with my lousy company and the friends that I trust. I'm going for a walk with her. You don't want to join us, that's fine, but you'd better stay put here, where Bucky knows he's safe. I'm not letting you take him away from me again."   
  
Steve leaves the room without waiting for an answer. The Soldier will be relieved, secretly, that he didn't have to provide one, and he'll be here when Steve gets back. Steve would prefer to return to Bucky, just Bucky, but that might be too much to ask for a few hours, or a few days. Natasha is still in the kitchen, looking less amazed now.   
  
"I overheard some of that," she says. "I think I understand Sam's concern now."   
  
"Let's go," Steve mutters, heading for the door. "Sam's right. I need to walk for a while."  
  
The seemingly endless reach of the sunlight is alarming, and the heat is oppressive. Steve has never been prone to phobias, or fear in general. He doesn't like this new jumpiness, and he steels his jaw as they walk further from the building, forcing himself to confront it head on.  
  
"Well," Natasha says after they've walked a few blocks in silence. "I may have jumped the gun on my all clear back there. You okay?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"He was, um. He sounded pretty angry. That's good, right? Anger is one of the stages of grief, or something. And the Soldier didn't get angry."   
  
"He says he's the Soldier when he gets like that. Like there are two people in his head all the time, or most of the time."   
  
Steve hasn't told anyone before now. Not even Sam. Natasha is frowning when he looks over at her.   
  
"That's a construct," she says. "The Soldier didn't have a personality. He didn't talk to people like that. He said 'yes' and 'no,' maybe. Probably not even with a 'sir' attached. Or a 'Cэр,' for that matter."  
  
"I know it's a defense mechanism. It's him, Bucky's anger. It's easier for him to process than the guilt, the horror, so I'm letting him have that. Is that bad? Am I hurting him?" Steve isn't challenging her; he's asking, sincerely.  
  
"I don't know," Natasha says. "They say that about the stages, like we're all programmed the same way, but we're not. Every grief is different. This is a very unique, very big grief. I can give you advice based on Clint, but it might not apply."  
  
"Has he healed, do you think? Clint? All the way."   
  
"Cap." Natasha grins, but it fades quickly, an insincere shield. "Nobody heals all the way. Not even you."  
  
"Is that my mistake?" Steve asks. "Am I looking at the big picture wrong? Thinking he's going to get better, like it's an illness that can be cured?"   
  
"It's hard to say. Do you think he should be medicated?"  
  
"No. Well. With what?"  
  
"Anti-psychotics?"   
  
"Did Clint?" Steve asks, his voice clipped.  
  
"No. But--"  
  
"He's not psychotic."   
  
"I noticed he walks around your place naked," Natasha says. "Hey, I'm not judging," she says when Steve gives her a look. "Clint -- needed that. Eventually. It can help."  
  
Steve opens his mouth a few times but can't come up with a way to approach this. He's not embarrassed, exactly. He's thinking about what Bucky told him about his Hydra handler, wanting to keep that secret for him while still gathering information about how to proceed.  
  
"Is that new?" Natasha asks. "Sex? You two, together?"  
  
"Not entirely," Steve mutters. "We were -- it was innocent. Back then."  
  
"Yeah, sex usually is."   
  
"I'm serious. He was so warm. And after his first stint as a POW, too, after he'd lost some of his innocence. He was shaky, after, but -- his eyes, he had this warmth. I see it sometimes, still. Just in glances. It breaks me up."  
  
They pass the Lincoln Memorial and come to a stop on the Arlington Bridge. Steve rests his elbows on the stone railing and looks down at the river, Natasha leaning beside him. She can talk about the practicals of dating and sex without hesitation, but he's noticed that she's not big on discussing feelings, in the abstract sense, and he can tell she doesn't know what to say next.  
  
"I've noticed something about you," he says, to let her off the hook.  
  
"What's that?"  
  
"You don't carry a purse. Even when you're in your civvies. Even when we were undercover."  
  
"They get in the way." She gives him a little smile and bumps his arm with her elbow. "I get why you want it like this," she says. "After I got Clint back, I didn't trust anyone else with him."   
  
"Bucky barely even trusts me. I don't think he'd survive another stint in captivity. I really don't."  
  
"Nobody's suggesting that, exactly. What if he came with us? What if he had a new mission, a new team? We just found a Hydra cell in the strangest place."  
  
"Yeah?" Steve straightens, some of his paranoid tunnel vision easing with this news. "Where?"  
  
"The Australian outback. Very remote, very difficult to case from the outside. The point is, and nobody else is quite with me on this yet, but. Do you think Bucky could work?"  
  
"Work -- with us? For Fury?"   
  
"In a sense, yeah."   
  
"Fury would never--"  
  
"This isn't coming down from Fury. This is intel me and Clint uncovered personally. I didn't just come here because Sam thinks you need exercise and fresh air. I was thinking of assembling a team, really doing this, and you were my first thought."  
  
"Thank you, but. You heard him back there. If Bucky grunted twice at Sam during one of our dinners I considered it a huge success."   
  
"Maybe this is optimistic, but I was thinking he and Clint might have more to say to each other, down the line. And Bucky wants to eradicate Hydra more than any of us, I'd think. I wouldn't have suggested this two months ago, and I'm still not sure it's the right thing, but. You've gotten him this far. I don't doubt that you could prop him up on your own for the rest of your life if you wanted to, there in that apartment, making his breakfast and tucking him into bed, but I don't think you can carry him any further without help."  
  
"I understand." Steve looks out at the river again. The light seems warmer here, less glaring, and it has a sparkling effect on the water. Steve flexes his hands on the bridge railing and feels the world opening up to him again, three hundred and sixty degrees of every place he might go next. "I'll talk to him," he says. "I don't know what he'll say. That outburst after the alarm went off -- that's the first time he's been like that in a while."   
  
"Sorry."  
  
"No, it might be good. We've been on a kind of plateau, lately. Stale, I guess. The outbursts tend to move things forward a little."  
  
Steve is still afraid of what he'll find when he returns to the apartment. He hugs Natasha goodbye on the street, promising to call her soon. She's in town for two days, then she's headed off on her self-assigned mission. So this is how things work now, Steve thinks, watching her go.   
  
He buys a frozen pizza and a six pack of light beer: a peace offering. He'll drink three of the beers himself to keep Bucky from downing the whole thing, and hopefully Bucky won't realize that they do nothing for Steve. He'll bring up the idea of going to Australia gently, and he'll refuse disappointment if Bucky says no. That last self-issued directive won't be easy, but he's determined.  
  
"Buck?" he says as soon as he's through the door, his heart in his throat. He'd felt confident until this moment, but the apartment is quiet and Bucky might be gone. "I brought groceries," Steve says. He sets the beers on the counter and throws the pizza in the freezer. "You hungry? Bucky?"  
  
He hurries into the bedroom when there's no answer, and lets out his breath when he finds Bucky sitting on the bed. He looks very tired and only meets Steve's eyes briefly, but he's here, in one piece, wearing Steve's clothes.   
  
"Do you want some pizza?" Steve asks, lingering in the doorway. "I guess it's a little early for lunch, but--"  
  
"I shot her," Bucky says. "That woman who was here."  
  
Steve takes this in, considers his response. He shakes his head.   
  
"Hydra shot her. They hurt you, and they hurt her, too. That was what was happening in that situation." He hears himself sounding wooden, though he completely believes what he's saying. Bucky has his knees pulled to his chest, his arms draped over his legs. The metal fingers are twitching. "You want a beer?" Steve asks, desperate.  
  
"Come here," Bucky says. "I want to try something."  
  
"Okay." Steve takes his shoes off and climbs onto the bed. Bucky lets his knees fall open and sits cross-legged. The way he used to, when. Steve hesitates, his breath stuttering out thinly for a moment, a ghost of his asthma sneaking past his lips. "You want me in your lap?" Steve asks. Bucky nods once and reaches for him.  
  
"I know I'm too small now," he says as Steve moves toward him. "But try it anyway. Just to see."   
  
Steve arranges himself awkwardly, putting his ass in Bucky's lap without actually resting all of his weight on Bucky's legs, his thighs snug around Bucky's waist as they shift against each other. He feels himself blushing, and he holds his breath when Bucky reaches up to rub his thumbs over the heat on Steve's cheeks. The pad of one thumb is callused and warm, and the other is cool metal. It still feels good, like it used to, letting Bucky draw him in close.  
  
"Am I crushing you?" Steve asks, his nose bumping Bucky's.   
  
"No," Bucky says, but he sounds a little strained. They readjust, and Steve's breath stutters again when he feels Bucky's erection against his. Bucky takes a deep breath and Steve does the same, exhaling when Bucky does. He used to do this back then, would try to match Bucky's breathing so his own wouldn't get too out of control. It never worked.   
  
"You okay?" Steve asks. He rubs Bucky's back, because he's the one who seems wrecked by this now, shaking.  
  
Bucky shrugs and surges forward for a kiss. He hasn't been a big kisser since he ended up in Steve's bed, though he will tolerate it and sometimes seems to need it. Back then he would have smiled smugly, pet Steve's trembling shoulders, whispered reassurance. Now he's quiet except for a few approving grunts when Steve rolls his hips, grinding their erections together.   
  
"We both need a shave," Steve says, because it's so strange to kiss with stubble on their cheeks. "We could -- Do you want clean up? Together? Have some pizza after?"  
  
"You don't like this?" Bucky's loosens his grip on Steve, releasing him. Steve shakes his head and pulls Bucky's arms around him again.   
  
"No, I do. God, Bucky. I always loved kissing you. It just feels different. Sorry, I feel like I'm crushing you, like I'm this big ogre." He used to feel so completely enclosed by Bucky's warmth, and that was embarrassing, too, childish, but it was also the only time Steve had ever liked being small. Now that's gone, and it's bugging him much more than he ever expected him to. They don't fit together the way they used to, anywhere.  
  
"Oh," Bucky says, as if he's heard Steve say all this out loud. "All right, here."  
  
He pushes Steve over, onto his back, onto the pillows. Bucky clambers on top and straddles him, settling his rump back against Steve's erection.   
  
"You know why I stopped?" Bucky asks.   
  
"Stopped?"  
  
"The kissing practice or whatever the hell I called it. I started to want to be inside you. That scared the shit out of me. You were so fragile, and I wanted to do  _that_  to you. That was my response to your fragility, to everything I wanted to protect: I wanted to stick my dick in it. Wouldn't let myself touch you again after that."   
  
His tone is gruff and frank like the Soldier's. Like Bucky's idea of the Soldier, anyway, since he invented a tough guy in the aftermath, unable to conceive of the way the blank one functioned. But he sounds like Bucky, too.   
  
"You could," Steve says. He's never, not like that. "Now."  
  
"No, did you hear me? I got repulsed by the thought. Even with you big like this, you're still him, you've still got these eyes. Innocent, and. I tried with other guys, twice -- couldn't. Always thought of you, got limp for them. But you could." He's reaching back, undoing Steve's jeans. "In me. I think I'd like it if it was you."  
  
"Well -- wait--"   
  
"Why wait? You don't want it?" Bucky freezes, and in an instant there's apology all over his face. "Oh, sorry. I'm sorry, Steve. I shouldn't--"  
  
He starts to slide away, but Steve clutches at him and draws him down, closer. Bucky's breath is a hot, heavy push on his cheek, and his eyes are darting to Steve's and away, then back.   
  
"Let's hold off on that," Steve says. "It's a big thing."   
  
"Right, and I'm gonna find someone, later, ever, who I want inside me more than you?" Bucky's voice cracks. Steve kisses his face all over, reeling.   
  
"I want it to be me," Steve says, though he actually wants Bucky in him more, but they can negotiate that minefield in the very distant future, perhaps. "Just not right now."   
  
"Why not right now?"  
  
"Because you're shaking like a leaf."   
  
Steve feels mean, pointing this out. Bucky used to chuckle about how hard Steve got for his kisses, taunting him for it gently. As if Bucky wasn't always just as stiff.  
  
"So I shake now," Bucky says, glaring at him. "I've got a machine plugged into my body. Shit therefore happens. Doesn't mean I don't know what I want and can't ask for it."   
  
"Is it the arm making you shake?" Steve asks. He strokes it, concerned. Bucky groans and flops down onto him, deflating. He lies there and lets Steve rub his back, avoiding the question.  
  
"I want to try it with you," Bucky says, mumbling this against Steve's neck, "Because it was something from then that wasn't killing people, and it made me think of how I'd wanted to do it to you, so it made me feel like me, in a horrible way. I want to feel like me in a not-horrible way. With you. Kissing, and we could sleep after, together. And eat pizza. I guess."  
  
"Oh. Bucky."  
  
Steve holds him tighter, nosing at his forehead and trying not to get visibly upset. He's losing his erection, but maybe later. Eventually.   
  
"That sounds perfect," Steve says when Bucky lifts his face. His eyes are dry, and the warmth is there, grief flooded up around its edges but not quite able to snuff it out. "Perfect. We'll do that when we're both ready. 'Cause you're going to stay with me, right?"  
  
"Right." The obedience in this answer is somewhere between the Soldier's 'no shit' and Bucky wanting to say yes, of course, and believe it.  
  
"I'm going to shave first," Steve says. They're going to need lots of game plans going forward, big and small, and Steve is good at making decisions in the heat of battle. "I don't like kissing with all this scruff on my face. You want to join me?"  
  
Bucky shrugs, but he follows Steve to the bathroom, sticking close. They climb into the shower together, and Steve adjusts the water before pulling Bucky against him. Here, standing, they do seem to fit together perfectly again.   
  
“I lied before,” Bucky says, muttering this against Steve's shoulder. He's letting Steve rock him a little, like a slow dance under the shower spray. Neither of them has yet reached for the soap.  
  
“About what?” Steve asks.   
  
“I was cold. I did feel it. I was.”   
  
Steve can't do anything now but hold Bucky under the warm water, wash his hair, shave his cheeks, soap his chest and kiss him between each of these tasks. Later, over pizza, they'll talk about Australia. Later there will be decisions and resignations, maybe breakdowns. Right now this feels important, and Steve is learning that these small things truly are, in a way that he won't be able to see until they're miles further down the road: Bucky's clean skin, his shuddering sigh when he comes in Steve's hand, and the way he kisses Steve afterward, still asking with his whole body:  _find me, keep looking, don't turn back yet_. 


End file.
